Re: libc upgrade vs. incompatible locales

[Andy Wingo <wingo@igalia.com>]

On Mon 31 Aug 2015 13:49, ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> Andy Wingo <wingo@igalia.com> skribis:
>
>> On Sun 30 Aug 2015 21:46, ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
>>
>>> The binary format for locales is dependent on the libc version.  Over
>>> the last few releases, it turned out to be compatible, but that of 2.22
>>> differs from that of 2.21 (a new element was added to locale categories,
>>> according to ChangeLog.)
>>
>> Does this amount to a binary-incompatible change to libc?  I guess not
>> if you make sure that if you had a statically linked binary, that you
>> set LOCPATH appropriately....
>>
>> What if we built bootstrap binaries to statically link their LOCPATH ?
>> Is that even possible?
>
> I don’t think locale data can be embedded in binaries.  Also, it’s a
> good strategy to avoid rebuilding the bootstrap binaries as much as
> possible, as it intuitively suggests that a Thompson attack is unlikely.

Sorry, I meant to say: why not prevent LOCPATH from being overridden on
bootstrap binaries?  Right now they are effectively dynamically linked
to their locale data.  A nice fix would be to statically link them to
their locale data.

A