Re: musl thoughts

[Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>]

On Sat, Mar 23, 2019 at 10:22:15PM +0100, Andreas Müller wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 23, 2019 at 10:16 PM Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, Mar 22, 2019 at 03:18:01PM -0700, Khem Raj wrote:
> > >...
> > > There are certain design aspects of musl which are actually turning
> > > out to be good
> > > e.g. there is no __MUSL__ define, so non-portable code can not be
> > > hidden which is a good thing,
> > >...
> >
> > Please take a closer look at some of the musl changes to NM that made
> > upgrading NM so hard for Andreas.
> >
> > +#if defined(__GLIBC__)
> >  #include <net/ethernet.h>
> > +#else /* musl libc */
> > +#define ETH_ALEN       6               /* Octets in one ethernet addr   */
> > +#endif
> >
> > Using __GLIBC__ in workarounds for bugs in musl is wrong,
> > and cannot be upstreamed since it would do the wrong thing
> > on other non-broken C libraries.
> >
> > > While the eyes may hurt
> > > to see them, it does serve a
> > > good reminder of whats needed for a given package.
> > >...
> >
> > Who is responsible for fixing the root causes of such bugs in musl,
> > so that the workaround patches can be dropped from packages like NM?
> >
> > cu
> > Adrian
> If I am not mistaken nobody is responsible. It is recipe wise: Sending
> out a patch that fails for musl is rejected usually.

As you have experienced, it does create a huge technical debt to ship 
workaround patches in several recipes instead of fixing the bug in musl.

> The last example could be fixed easily at musl shipping a ethernet.h containing
> #define ETH_ALEN       6
>...

That's already shipped by musl.

But there seems to be some incompatibility between musl and the 
kernel headers used by musl.

This has to be sorted out in musl and/or the kernel headers.

> Andreas

cu
Adrian

-- 

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        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
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