Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 15:17:55 -0800 From: Joe Kelsey <joek@mail.flyingcroc.net> To: John Polstra <jdp@polstra.com> Cc: ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: WARNING: portupgrade considered harmful Message-ID: <3E5FEE23.8050403@mail.flyingcroc.net> In-Reply-To: <200302282148.h1SLm8pc031639@vashon.polstra.com> References: <3E5FB1F8.4050405@mail.flyingcroc.net> <3E5FC0DD.1080704@mail.flyingcroc.net> <200302282102.h1SL22Sm031572@vashon.polstra.com> <3E5FD22B.3040904@mail.flyingcroc.net> <200302282148.h1SLm8pc031639@vashon.polstra.com>
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John Polstra wrote: > In article <3E5FD22B.3040904@mail.flyingcroc.net>, > Joe Kelsey <joek@mail.flyingcroc.net> wrote: > >>Sorry, the last time I had a conversation about rtld-elf, I remember it >>being with you. I apologize for my memory issues. I also apologize to >>the list for naming John incorrectly. > > > No, your memory is fine. It probably was me that you discussed it > with. But I dropped maintainership of the dynamic linker quite some > time ago. What I objected to was your putting words in my mouth. I am sorry about that. What I objected to before and what I still object to in the shared library is that it allows loading of *multiple* copies of a single library as many times as are requested. It also allows loading of multiple different versions of the same library as many times as requested. Neither Solaris nor SVR4 support this behavior. I have no idea why the FreeBSD loader supports it. It is explicitly supported plainly in the code of the runtime loader. If anyone has an explanation for this behavior, I am all ears. /Joe > The "correct" behavior of the dynamic linker is a whole lot more > complicated than you realize. In my experience, if you make some > expedient change to accomodate one port, you end up breaking a dozen > others. When I wrote the dynamic linker, I followed the standards > that existed at the time. (Namely, SVR4 and Sun's de facto > standard.) A lot has changed in the 5+ years since then. Also, > much software is written for Linux, whose dynamic linker has gone > through a succession of quirks over time. Should we try to track > the Linux hack of the week? Maybe, maybe not. It's a matter of > opinion. When you are actually responsible for maintaining the > dynamic linker, you get very cautious about changing its basic > algorithms. There are ports that rely on all sorts of quirks, and > they're not always compatible with each other. I chose the path of > trying to stick to the standards, but that's not the only reasonable > approach. > > John To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-ports" in the body of the message
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