Re: [libc-alpha] Re: [open-source] Re: Wish for 2002

[tb at becket dot net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)]

Kaz Kylheku <kaz@ashi.footprints.net> writes:

> On 9 Jan 2002, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> 
> > Adding functions in common use is the *job* of
> > glibc.
> 
> strlcpy and strcat are not in common use.  They are de jure
> nonstandard, and de facto nonportable.

So what?  glibc has plenty of functions that are nonstandard, and a
jillion bogus ones that are standard and essentially unused dead
weight.

Perhaps we need a way to enable large libraries of mostly-unused
functions to avoid the fragmentation problems that Linus thinks are so
critical.

It shouldn't take any longer to map a very large file as a very short
one in the kernel; if it does now, then that's a problem that should
(eventually) be fixed.  (I'm not trying to argue it should have any
special priority.)

> If you think that there is some kind of systematic exclusion of BSD
> ideas going on, based on anti-BSD prejudice, then you are simply seeing
> things from a very twisted perpective. That perspective will not allow
> you to see any technical, rational arguments.

Not at all.  My point is that it was once the goal of glibc to have
all the functions from BSD, regarding that as a de facto standard as
important as Posix.  Somewhere along the line, the idea that glibc
should be *superb* got lost, and now it's ok if glibc is merely
adequate.  Why?  I think glibc should be superb--it should be better
than anyone else's.  For a library, that generally means it should at
least be a superset.

> Why should other systems adopt new BSD functions? Is it because
> of the obvious supremacy of anything having to do with BSD or what?

No, certainly not.  It's because we should make our library better
than everyone else's if we can.

> > Given that the function is necessary for some programs, the fact of
> 
> Can you name some of these programs?

Nope.