On 17 Dec 1998, Gordon Matzigkeit wrote: > Since we're talking about names anyway, I just wanted to ask if > `glibc2' is the best name for the Hurd's C library package. I'm not > sure what the convention for arriving on that name is, or if it's just > an arbitrary one that looks good.
I considered the following names: libc6 glibc2 libc2 The first one is the "Linux" name. I don't think we should choose a Linux name if we can choose a GNU/Hurd name instead without great problems (and we *can* do it without great problems). The third one, libc2, would be very strange, because it would seem that libc6 (also in Debian, but in other archs) is four versions ahead of the GNU/Hurd version (when in fact they are in sync). Since all the documentation about Linux speaks about "libc6 being equivalent to glibc2", I think that glibc2 is the best name for GNU/Hurd. Maybe it would be also the best one for GNU/Linux as well, but I have not even thought about suggesting all the Linux people to change at this moment ;-) > SV> Just remember to make glibc2-dev to Provide: libc6-dev, since > SV> there are still some packages having a hardcoded dependency on > SV> libc6-dev. > > Hmm... this is confusing to me. Why should have a separate libc > package name for the Hurd if we just have to add `Provides' lines > anyway? Because the -dev package for a lib package is usually named after the lib package, so for glibc2 we have glibc2-dev. Normally the dependencies on shared library packages are calculated automatically via the shlibs mechanism. This does not happen for -dev packages, so some packages have a hardcoded dependency on libc6-dev, but I consider this to be a bug that should not prevent us to choose the name we feel to be the best. glibc2-dev would be the only package having this Provides: line, and only for compatibility with "stubborn" packages having this hardcoded dependency on "libc6-dev". -- "fd97dc5627abc7f99d4b083266eceb0a" (a truly random sig)