Samrobb's Journal: Open Source, Closed Mind

As part of this whole cross-compiler schtick I'm doing right now, I've come across a couple of things that we've had to fix here and there. Build configurations, some source patches, spec files... each cross-compiler seems to have it's own collection of quirks.

One of the pacakges we work with is glibc. Now, please understand this - we build (cross-compile) glibc under Cygwin. While Cygwin happens to be the host environment for building glibc, we are building a version of glibc that will run on an embedded system (ARM, PPC, what have you.)

It's very easy to do this. Well, OK - not easy, but if you dig through the cross-gcc list hosted by RedHat, and spend some time reading about cross-compilation issues that people have already come across and solved, it's not too horribly hard. I mean, I'm primarily a Windows developer, and I didn't have too much of a problem with it, except...

Building glibc shared libraries under Cygwin is broken. Building static libs works just fine, but shared libs are just plain hosed. It took a while chasing down shadows before I realized that what I was seeing was a case insensitivity problem... NTFS is case-preserving but case-insensitive, so the glibc build process was unable to properly distinguish between object files that were intended to go into shared object files (xxx.os) and object files that were intended to go into the libc_nonshared static library (xxx.oS).

Turns out this probelm has been around since glibc 2.0. Cool - here I've been bugging various folks online, asking all sorts of questions about cross-compilers and the like, and I've gotten to the point where I can give something back to them.

Well, I still can, I guess. Unfortunately for me, I decided that I'd report the problem and submit a patch to the the glibc maintainers. Creeping crud on a stick! You'd have thought I had made some sort of indecent proposition involving farm animals, the reaction I got:

No patch enabling windows users to use glibc will ever be accepted.
Get lost!

Ouch. Can't you just feel the love?

I replied, and explained that this was not a patch to enable use of glibc under Windows, but to enable you to properly cross-compile glibc with shared objects under Cygwin (actually, on any filesystem that's case-insensitive). Got essentially the same response... and when I asked where I could find something that explained why they did not accept Cygwin related patches... well, that was the end of the matter, apparently. I'm some sort of sub-human Windows looser, and not worth repsponding to.

<shrug> Their loss. </shrug>

So, I'll be letting the folks who are interested in such things - the cross-gcc folks - know about this and a couple of other issues I've come across. Maybe someone with physical proximity to the maintainer in question will take a 2x4 cluestick and whomp on 'em a bit, though I doubt that will ever happen. From what I've seen, this particular blend of childishness, incivility, hostility and a basic inability to relate to others as human beings is - for some reason - considered to be a good thing in some segments of the open source community.

So, what have I learned? More or less, that I have absolutely no reason to try and contribute to an open source project. I'm not wanted. If I ever do try to contribute, I need to remember that my work will be judged, first and foremost, not on techincal merit; but on whether or not my political leanings (as reflected by OS) are correct and acceptable to the those who style themselves the gatekeepers of open source purity.

Well... maybe not. You see, a few years ago, while working at Lycos, I submitted a patch to Apache. The folks working on it at the time were quite willing to incorporate it... even though it got backed out later, since it made a complete mess of things instead of fixing them. Hey, I was young(er) :-/ Still, the Apache maintainers were pretty good about it. I think I still have email from one of them telling me that I shouldn't be discouraged by it, and that I should keep trying if I wanted to help out.

Quite frankly, that's what I intend to do. Pay attention to an ignorant slob with all the social skills of a spoiled five year old? Please. I'd much rather follow the advice I've heard, over and over again, from every other adult I've ever admired and respected.