glibc
History and Development of glibc:
- Originated in the 1980s by the Free Software Foundation (FSF).
- Significant contributions by Ulrich Drepper since 1995.
- Licensing issue with Sun RPC resolved in 2010.
- ABI breakage bug on s390 in 2014.
- Controversial joke about abortion in source code in 2018.
Version Highlights and Forks:
- Versions like 1.0 (1992), 2.0 (2006), 2.6 (2007), 2.12 (2010), and 2.39 (latest in 2024).
- Forked by Linux kernel developers to create Linux libc in 1994.
- Discontinued Linux libc in 1997 due to glibc 2.0’s superior features.
Features, Functionality, and Contributors:
- Critical component of the GNU system with APIs like ISO C11 and POSIX.1-2008.
- Functions include open, read, write, malloc, printf, etc.
- Released under the GNU Lesser General Public License.
- Authors like Roland McGrath and contributors like Ulrich Drepper.
- Migration to Git repository in May 2009.
- Removal of copyright assignment requirement in 2021.