X-pop3-spooler: POP3MAIL 2.1.0 b 4 980420 -bs-
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 02:35:25 -0700
From: david <david AT kalifornia DOT com>
Message-Id: <199809150935.CAA03343@Midnight.Hacking.in.the.land.of.Kalifornia.com>
To: pcg AT goof DOT com
Cc: sleas AT ixion DOT honeywell DOT com, beastium-list AT Desk DOT nl
Reply-To: david AT kalifornia DOT com
Subject: Re: libc-5.4.22?!?
In-Reply-To: <19980914231210.00535@cerebro.laendle>
X-Mailer: XCmail 0.99.6 - with PGP support, PGP engine version 0.5
X-Mailerorigin: http://www.fsai.fh-trier.de/~schmitzj/Xclasses/XCmail/
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Sender: Marc Lehmann <pcg AT goof DOT com>
Status: RO
X-Status: A
Content-Length: 1991
Lines: 41

Reply to mail from Marc Lehmann about libc-5.4.22?!?
-----------------
> I heard they are using a multitude of bugfixes to 5.3.12, so they naturally
> don't want to take their customers to the "experimental" 5.4 releases.
> (esp. since libc5 is _DEAD_)

I would hardly consider 5.4.46 as 'experimental' :)

Patching 5.3.12 a multitude of times makes it just as much if not moreso
experimental.  5.4.46 is very stable and to my knowledge has no issues
with it.  5.3.12 does.  Program developers write their programs with
"version x.x.x required, version y.y.y found.  aborting!"

Redhat is thereby making things inherently incompatible.  Developers
increase version numbers on their [libc5] program for a reason.  Making
several patches and not increasing the version number leads to
confusion...is it or isn't it fixed for problem xyz?

>> etc have gone libc6, it is becoming an increasingly "Slackware" thing.
> Maybe in the future. Not now. I'd question wether most linux users use libc5
> or libc6 (I don't know, but I think thelibc5 part is laaarge)

A very large _established_ portion of the community still uses libc5.  We
often have people writing into the kernel dev list with "i am still using 
1.2.13 and it's working just perfectly."

These people are sometimes hard to convince to upgrade.  Same goes for
people with libc5.  If it's working perfectly for them, there is no reason
why they should upgrade and they'll get a little hot around the collar if
you drop support for their system.

But we're getting a bit off topic here.  I wish Redhat would supply
current versions of software.  They were quite willing to release a
distribution with a pre kernel on it, I'm sure a library that has been in
use for many many months with no complaints is certainly valid.

-d
-- 
Look, look, see Windows 98.  Buy, lemmings, buy!   
(c) 1998 David Ford.  Redistribution via the Microsoft Network is prohibited.
 for linux-kernel: please read linux/Documentation/* before posting problems