Talk:GNU C Library

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Contents 1 dicdef? 2 Covered by GPL? 3 Later today I plan to move this article 4 Alpha? 5 libc6 usage uncommon? 6 pronounce 7 what exactly was the linux libc5? 8 Todo 9 glibc initialism 10 Familiar a GNU/Linux distribution?

[edit] dicdef?

isn't this really kind of more of a dicdef than an encyclopedic entry? Avriette 00:56, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Covered by GPL?

Is this library licensed under the GPL? Is it, then, possible at all to compile and release proprietary programs under Linux using these standard C libraries, which I'm pretty sure are the only modern ones available under Linux? --I am not good at running 05:30, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

LGPL. Entire properitary operating systems (BeOS, for instance) have used glibc as their main C library. Kiand 09:38, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Later today I plan to move this article

From the package's homepage [1] it seems that the proper name is "GNU C Library". Can anyone give a good reason for me not to move this article to that name?

Nothing will be lost - not the Talk, not the history. Nothing will be broken, no links will have to be changed, Glibc will become a redirect to GNU C Library. Gronky 11:16, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

At that point why would you move the article? Why not just make your additional article name the redirect and save the troublesome redirect for the talk page? Janizary 07:24, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with "the troublesome redirect for the talk page". My reason for moving the article was that the new title is correct and the old one is not. If titles didn't matter, each page would be refered to by number and would then have redirect aliases. One effect of the title is that it gets written in big letters across the top of the page. Gronky 15:51, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Alpha?

I've unlinked an ambigious "alpha" from the main page, but am not sure enough that it means DEC Alpha to link it. - brenneman^(t)(c) 23:44, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] libc6 usage uncommon?

The official Debian (and Ubuntu) package for glibc version 2 is 'libc6', which seems like a fairly major use... --Delirium 06:25, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Nah. The package may be named that, but glibc is pretty universally called glibc, not libc6, except to contrast it with the older libcs. A Debian package name may be major, but it's not common (if you get my drift). Maintaining this name is just clumsy, because glibc is not exclusive to Linux (and on other platforms there may not even be a "libc5") and it has its own version number. I think the Debian name remains for historical reasons. We wouldn't expect a "libc7" any time soon, after all, just newer versions of glibc. 81.58.51.131 08:32, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

The story is told here: http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/forking.html (about half way down, point #6) Gronky 10:30, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

libc.so.6 is the standard soname of the gnu C library on linux. Debian names the binary package libc6 due to thier standard naming conventions for library packages (the source package is called glibc btw). I'm not sure what distros outside the debian family do. If and when there is ever a glibc 3.0 with backwards compatibility broken i supsect it will have a soname of libc.so.7 and a debian package name of libc7 but i don't see that happening in the near future. Plugwash

[edit] pronounce

Glibc -- how do you pronounce this??

I've always heard it pronounced as: "gee lib see" (soft 'g') Gronky 13:15, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] what exactly was the linux libc5?

anyone know any more about it? who wrote it? what license was it under? why did people preffer glibc? Plugwash 22:35, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

libc5 was a fork of GNU libc by the Linux developers. They eventually gave up and went back to GNU libc. This is way GNU libc, even though it is still on version 2.4 is often called "libc6", as it superseded libc5. The story is in section 6 of Fear of forking. I'll add that link to the article. Gronky 22:52, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Todo

• Add refs to the claims that it supports X, Y, and Z standards. Refs can almost certainly be found from the page liked to from here:[2]
• History: there is probably a lot of glibc info in the old GNUs bulletins: [3]

[edit] glibc initialism

I do hope f/ a disambiguation-list, of various related initialisms, f/ ignorami, such as myself.

Thank You,

[[ hopiakuta Please do sign your signature on your message. ~~ Thank You. -]] 23:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Familiar a GNU/Linux distribution?

I would argue rather strongly against that description. OpenEmbedded (on which OM and Fam are based) does not require (and commonly) GNU tools at all. If you use the Qtopia/OPIE version then there is no glibc required either. We can't call a distribution GNU/Linux if its not based on GNU at all - no matter the argument. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:12, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the confusion here comes from the GDE option (which is GNU based). Its an option for a PDA like interface - but its not the only one. The other is Qtopia/OPIE (which is not GNU based). You can't (afaik) build GDE on a non-glibc basis (ie with uClibc or others), but you can (and do) with OPIE. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)