Follow @Openwall on Twitter for new release announcements and other news
[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2013 23:22:22 -0500
From: Rob Landley <rob@...dley.net>
To: musl@...ts.openwall.com
Cc: musl@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: question: hard-coded file descriptors in
 stdin/stdout/stderr

On 03/17/2013 10:28:51 PM, Zvi Gilboa wrote:
> >> Doesn't mingw already exist?
> 
> Of course it does, but it does not allow one to compile unmodified  
> posix code.
> 
> 
> >> How on earth does licensing on WINDOWS matter, since the base OS  
> is proprietary? So this is explicitly "provide free stuff to make  
> paying money to Microsoft more appealing"?
> 
> My approach on that issue is apparently rather different.  But as  
> often
> happens, the greatest resistance comes not from those who oppose  
> one's goal,
> but rather from those who share the same goal, yet differ in their  
> vision as
> to how it should be reached.  My hope is that as my project evolves,  
> you,
> too, will become one of its supports.

Oh no, I oppose your goal entirely. I think that a posix libc  
attempting to support windows is a bad idea.

My concern isn't that you'll succeed or fail either way, it's that in  
trying to do it you'll mess up the nice clean Linux C library Rich has  
made by forcing a bunch of non-posix assumptions on it. (I.E. fork it  
all you like, that's merely useless, but pushing this stuff upstream  
makes no sense to me and seems actively harmful.)

This assumption that started this thread is a perfect example. The  
posix-2008 stdin definition under system interfaces in the function  
list explicitly says that stdin is 0, stdout is 1, and stderr is 2. So  
musl relying on what posix said _is_ what you were objecting to.  
Meanwhile Rich is saying that letting windows programs rely on posix is  
the advantage of your approach. This seems like a direct conflict to me.

It is of course Rich's call not mine. But I'm not following the logic  
at all.

Rob

Powered by blists - more mailing lists

Confused about mailing lists and their use? Read about mailing lists on Wikipedia and check out these guidelines on proper formatting of your messages.