What happened? Well, a seemingly technical problem turns into a character problem. Debian swaps one system library for another, but it is not a trivial change, they do it for a character problem, they will understand exactly why. ¿Speak badly of Free Software? This is what we will see next.
C is a programming language otherwise very important and root for others, libraries are sets of files programmed to support other programs. With the sum of these two concepts we already understand what a C library means and we can continue.
GNU / Linux on Debian and many other distros uses so far GLIBC, which is nothing more than one more part of the GNU operating system.
Spirits are heated
Behind so much code and so much, there are people and within people, or rather in their heads, there are feelings, of course, good and bad.
Looking for material to explain this news I ended up in Digg where the first comment said exactly the same thing I thought when I saw the news but in English:
Can someone explain the details of this to me please? My machine uses Debian and I love this operating system, however I am not some kind of super linuxer geek so I don't understand how the news affects me
Instead of explaining what happened, I better translate the answer you received (in a free translation of mine):
Glibc is a very essential library in the operation of Linux. Almost all programs use it because it does very simple things like allocating memory, comparing texts, printing the screen and things like that. One of the most important people in the development of glibc is Ulrich drepper, who the more technically advanced he has become, the heavier he has become with other people and often rejects changes even though they are sensible for the majority.
Some got fed up with the things he didn't implement and his bluntness, so they grabbed a copy of glibc to make whatever changes they wanted to it. The hope is that this version will update more frequently, be more stable, have more features, and be a better project overall. If this happens, Debian and probably all the distros that derive from it like Ubuntu or Mepis will benefit enormously.
Something similar happened with GCC (egcs) and XFree86 (X.org) and both times they meant something very beneficial.
The explanation is accurate, from top to bottom, except for subjective impressions of the developer (which remind me of mutiny in Menéame from a few days ago) since we do not know the developer closely and we cannot make a value judgment on his work so far away.
But we see of
three extremely interesting issues that are very Free Software but are very striking about program development:
1- A main developer can give them of guru and do what you want, ending up pissing off those who help develop an application or in this case a library. Interpersonal relationships are a delicate problem among programmers and exist talks to improve them.
2- That if you don't like how a free software development team works, you can start fixing the matter with your own hands and not in combos, but taking care of your own copy. The classic: "If you don't like it, go away«… But to create your own application.
3- That a division of this type can do users goodEspecially if the original development work is really bad or is going through a bad time. We can call it competition or renewal, you will comment to us.
What happened in the end?
The development of the «discriminated boys»And known as EGLIBCIt ended up being really positive, enough for Debian to abandon the original version in the next versions, come on, the GNU, Stallman's.
This is also a new signal (looking under the water) against the FSF and Stallman, slowly Debian leaves aside some things of GNU, a true act of independence if you think about it from the conflict over the blobs.
Like love, it seems that free software overcomes all problems.
I hope your comments.
It is actually quite logical for this to happen. Note that it is not bad in any way. You don't like how something works and well, you try to change it. It is true that it shocks a lot when they are group tasks of people who pull to the same side. But in a way that freedom is not bad at all. Thanks to that there are so many different distributions, desktop environments that came out of other projects. And so although they look like they are different. It is giving a little more freedom to those who believe they can do something better. We don't all think the same way. And it's okay, so be it.
yep, that's the good thing about Free Software, anyone can make a fork ... although of course, to do it you need cooperation and more than anything (I forgot the word)
In any case, great that, as I said before, is the good thing about free software, in fact most of the current technologies are copies of others, the good thing about free software is that the copy is free, and anyone can make a copy of the copy… this is how more innovations come out… it sounds ironic but it's true.
this reminds me of mariaDB
this is going to be used with sid, right? I use Lenny, how can I use it?
It reminds me of the typical phrase "To taste the colors"; It seems to me a good decision by Debian, although EGLIBC is younger, it does not mean that it will not be as good as GLIBC.
I agree with you from a source about "gurus" developers, I am still studying a career, and there are many who do not accept a way of programming, or a different logic than theirs, and even if you are in a team with those people and give them a good idea, they end up applying the one they want and many times even less efficient than the one you proposed, this is very common.
As already mentioned, I also think that this benefits GNU / Linux enormously, it is better to have many projects than few, right?
It is true that perhaps it is better to join forces, but I still think that in Linux variety is what we like the most, for example, A few days ago I was trying to download a complete web page, to obtain some images, and with "wget" I threw myself problems, I downloaded what I did not want, I searched for google and found "httrack" I used it and it worked better, if only there had been "wget" there would have been everything. Although I still like "wget" more: P
Cheers! :)
Two things, one, I support the change to eglibc 100%. Trying to compile glibc for arm is for the brave, there are 3 or 4 glibc-gcc pairs that work, and a small difference is enough to make it impossible to have something working.
The other should be a library instead of a bookstore.
library = library, bookstore = bookstore.
Regards,
Jose