Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> writes:

>> I started looking at what it would take to upgrade glibc to 2.29 on
>> ‘core-updates’.  Bad news: it depends on Python.
>
> I had to check the date.  This is for real?

It's for real:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
Changes to build and runtime requirements:

* Python 3.4 or later is required to build the GNU C Library.
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-announce/2019/msg00000.html

AFAIU the relevant patch is
https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=commit;h=c6982f7efc1c70fe2d6160a87ee44d871ac85ab0

Before that commit «Python is (was) required to build the GNU C Library
manual and to run some tests.» (and AFAIU tests was skipped if Python
was not available in the build environment)

[...]

Viva Guix! Gio'.

-- 
Giovanni Biscuolo

Xelera IT Infrastructures