Re: Removal of unexec support from glibc malloc

[Florian Weimer]

On 01/18/2016 08:20 PM, John Wiegley wrote:
>>>>>> Florian Weimer <address@hidden> writes:
> 
>> This is a heads-up that glibc malloc will likely remove support code for the
>> Emacs unexec mechanism during the coming year.
> 
> Hi Florian,
> 
> I think you might understand our dismay at hearing this without any prior
> notice, since Emacs does depend on the unexec mechanism, and we are currently
> preparing a major upcoming release (25.1) that makes use of it.

This is the prior notice.  I'm writing to you before the patch is even
written.  This is not something which is going to happen overnight.

> Could we start a discussion on whether it's possible to still allow this
> support in some form? You are asking us to make a rather significant change to
> low-level code that has been functioning for a very long time.

That's because others in the GNU ecosystem have bent over backwards to
support this mechanism, at a real cost to them.

I think it is time to tackle it at the root.  If you cannot make the
changes yourself, we'll have to make sure that you have a replacement
available when the need arises.  Even if we have to do the development,
it will pay off fairly soon on the toolchain side.

Florian