Re: Recent changes to sysctl.h breaks glibc

Eric W. Biederman (ebiederm@xmission.com)
19 May 2003 16:18:39 -0600


"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com> writes:

> Followup to: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0305191039320.16596-100000@home.transmeta.com>
> By author: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>
> In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
> >
> > A number of headers have historical baggage, mainly to support the
> > old libc5 habits, and because removing the ifdef's is something that
> > nobody has felt was worth the pain.
> >
> > I think the only header file that should be considered truly exported is
> > something like "asm/posix_types.h". For the others, we'll add __KERNEL__
> > protection on demand if the glibc guys can give good arguments that it
> > helps them do the "copy-and-cleanup" phase.
> >
>
> Copy and cleanup isn't realistic either, though, because it doesn't
> track ABI changes.

ABI changes or ABI additions?

If the ABI is not fixed that is a bug. Admittedly some interfaces
in the development kernel are still under development and so have not
stabilized on an ABI but that is a different issue.

> ABI headers is the only realistic solution. We
> can't realistically get real ABI headers for 2.5, so please don't just
> break things randomly until then.

As the ABI remains fixed I remain unconvinced. Multiple implementations
against the same ABI should be possible. The real question which is the
more scalable way to do the code.

What I find truly puzzling is that after years glibc still needs
kernel headers at all.

Eric
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