Linux vs. libio

[Linus Torvalds]

In article < 19991221155340.P14133@namaste.lokigames-lan.com >,
Michael Vance  <briareos@lokigames.com> wrote:
>
>What does bother me is when we agree that things won't break, and
>then they do. I expected things to break from libc5 to libc6. No
>pointing whining about it. I did not expect things to break from glibc
>2.0 to 2.1. Perhaps that was my misunderstanding.

Excellent point.

I personally disagree completely with the glibc approach of "backwards
comaptibility at all costs". 

It is _much_ preferable to be clearly new and different than to try to
be 100% compatible and succeeding to 99.9%. 

If there are major C++ internal ABI changes in gcc, glibc should just be
upgraded to the next major version, and all backwards compatibility
cruft should be removed.  People still have the old libraries installed,
and every single old binary works fine - simply because nothing has
changed as far as they know or care. 

Why are people discussing all these clever dual-vtable things at all?
Talk about subtle bugs..

I'm personally quite ashamed that people point to "Linux" as holding
things back (and I agree with them). Why is gcc so tightly linked to
glibc issues, and why can't glibc just change?

		Linus