[OE-core] musl thoughts

[Andrea Adami]

On Sat, Mar 23, 2019 at 11:00 PM Andreas Müller <schnitzeltony at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, Mar 23, 2019 at 10:53 PM Adrian Bunk <bunk at stusta.de> wrote:
> >
> > 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 at 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.
> >
> Although I did not want to I'll start a musl build to create a cleanup
> for NM (and maybe) other musl patches.
>
> Andreas
> --
> _______________________________________________
> Openembedded-core mailing list
> Openembedded-core at lists.openembedded.org
> http://lists.openembedded.org/mailman/listinfo/openembedded-core

Hi,

I am jumping in a little late to take side with Khem :)

What happens now is that more 'bad' sources (written to suit glibc and
thus not portable) are discovered by the wider base of developers and
autobuilders.

I myself did struggle in the years to maintain a few packages deeply
bound to the kernel (mtd-utils, kexec tools) 'compatible' with klibc
so I know the pain.
As Khem said, this just needs time and efforts to clean up and
upstream the patches.

Cheers
Andrea