_BSD_SOURCE is used to introduce portability in only two cases and
these are only in there because a) they are useful in some situations
and b) cannot be implemented easily with non-BSD stuff (these two
cases are longjmp and getpgrp). In all other cases _BSD_SOURCE is
used only to protect the namespace. Nowadays it could even be removed
since most of the stuff protected by BSD is either available in all
old Unices (i.e., also available on other systems but not
standardized) or it is part of the Unix95/98 standards.
Therefore the situation is very different from _LINUX_SOURCE which
would only be usable on one single system.
> Yes, but I shouldnt have to go through the pain instantly. _LINUX_SOURCE
> should have built libc5 programs on libc6, and yes I should then fix
> portability.
The current interface is meant to be stable and therefore introducing
a Linux specific API would have to be there forever and this always
will lead to completely unnecessary incompatibilities. You must not
assume a programmer who knows the difference. This is not about you.
If you absolutely want to have something for the transition make this
available in a separate package for those who want it. You could
provide a set of headers and a library which every author who does not
care about copmatibility or who wants a quick hack can use. This
stuff could than be used for compiling just these package. The
headers (and the library, if this is necessary) should *not* be
installed since then they suddenly would get an "official" API and the
same problems appear again.
-- ---------------. drepper at gnu.org ,-. 1325 Chesapeake Terrace Ulrich Drepper \ ,-------------------' \ Sunnyvale, CA 94089 USA Cygnus Solutions `--' drepper at cygnus.com `------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu