Re: 64 bit time_t changes

["Steven M. Bellovin" <smb%cs.columbia.edu@localhost>]

On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 16:06:10 -0400 (EDT)
christos%zoulas.com@localhost (Christos Zoulas) wrote:
 
> I can do the work, but I am beginning to wonder if this is the time to
> bump libc, and get rid a lot of the compat code that we've collected
> through the years? We can use this to sanitize size_t across all the
> platforms and do the rest of the cleanup that is mentioned in
> shlib_version.
> 
> What I am afraid is going to happen if we provide all this
> compatibility stuff, is that:
>       1. libc will bloat a lot more.
>       2. since time_t is such a big abi change
>          [timeval, timespec, itimer stuff, rusage, ktrace, just to
> mention a few change], if we don't bump libc, we are going to cause
>           confusion with mixing 3rd party libraries that are
> compiled before and after the time_t change.
> 
> Opinions?
> 
Interesting question.  Let me me ask a couple of questions.

First -- will 5.0 ship with the old libc?  If not, I assume that all
binaries, both pkgsrc and user-written, will have to be recompiled.

Second -- when did we last bump libc?

Third -- if we're going to do it, what other changes should we make at
the same time?

                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb