11 ms·

I've definitely had my share of annoyances with musl-libc and would probably consider building my base images around distroless if that were something I were de

by dbt00 5y ago

I've definitely had my share of annoyances with musl-libc and would probably consider building my base images around distroless if that were something I were dealing with right now. In the meantime, it's kinda shitty of someone to casually squat on the alpine linux namespace. If you want to make a small distribution that also ships glibc, then it's not alpine. Don't call it that.

hhsbz 5y ago
If it's alpine with glibc I don't see what's wrong with calling it that
- faho 5y ago
  What's wrong with that is the reason trademarks exist: Confusion. If something is called "alpine-glibc", it's reasonable to expect that it's by the alpine people and supported like alpine. This, as we see here, annoys the alpine people because they now get bug reports and support requests from people using it, and have to direct people elsewhere. And when it doesn't work, they get the hit to their image even tho they've had nothing to do with it.
  - hhsbz 5y ago
    I think it's clear from the website that this is based on Alpine and not part of the project https://hub.docker.com/r/frolvlad/alpine-glibc/ https://hub.docker.com/r/frolvlad/alpine-glibc/ Without context, I think what this guy is pissed off about is that this project enables people to use alpine to run proprietary software.
    - faho 5y ago
      It doesn't outright state anywhere that it's not an official alpine product, and I don't know if everyone reads the site - many people will just copy the "FROM frolvlad/alpine-glibc" from elsewhere. In any case, the Alpine people would know, and they apparently think it's a problem. >Without context, But you have context here! It has issues with symbol versioning! There is "strange behavior and possible crashes, ". This makes alpine look bad, because people think it's the alpine project's fault! > what this guy is pissed off Please don't assume everyone is a "guy". In this case, Ariadne is not a "he" (she uses "she"), so a male-coded word like "guy" is ill-fitting.
      - im3w1l 5y ago
        FROM frolvlad/alpine-glibc That namespacing does make it look pretty unofficial to my eyes.
        faho 5y ago
        But do you know if alpine does official docker images namespaced as e.g. alpine/? Is "alpine-glibc" an official project and someone just helpfully made the image (or an image including an official glibc package)? Or is this a prerelease? Without a deep knowledge of alpine (or now reading this post) I couldn't answer any of these questions and I'm not sure I wouldn't try to go to alpine for bug reports. I think there's a reasonable potential for confusion, even with the namespace. (but granted, I don't use docker either, so maybe this is a common thing) And I assume the alpine people (like the author) know that they get bug reports for it and that the issues with it cause bad publicity, and that that's the context for the post and the proposal to block the package.
        Karunamon 5y ago
        The answer to the first question is an obvious yes, and it's obvious to anyone that uses Docker. No deep knowledge required. If you want Alpine, you do FROM alpine:(version). https://hub.docker.com/_/alpine https://hub.docker.com/_/alpine
        faho 5y ago
        Ah, that's good to know, thanks!
        ariadneconill 5y ago
        The problem is the people who use Docker but don't know anything about it. Or don't know that mixing libcs is a problem. They use this glibc package, break their containers and then blame Alpine for the breakage.
      - MrStonedOne 5y ago
        > > what this guy is pissed off >Please don't assume everyone is a "guy". In this case, Ariadne is not a "he" (she uses "she"), so a male-coded word like "guy" is ill-fitting. Please do not mince words, people have a tenancy to refer to their own gender identity when referring to people who's gender identity they do not know. You knew what they meant. from the hn guidelines: > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
  - jcelerier 5y ago
    It's the old Iceweasel story all over again. Sadly open-source is ill-equipped to handle naming issues.
- diegocg 5y ago
  It makes it look like an "official" project. Just give it a different name and explain that it's Alpine with glibc somewhere
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    It does not. They use Alpine in the name so people can find the image. Searching for Alpine on Docker Hub has 49,530 results. This image doesn't even show up on the first page of results. I think whoever wrote this needs to rethink how ridiculous they are being.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - op00to 5y ago
      I assumed it did.
- creshal 5y ago
  Except it's not, as it mixes glibc with musl in ways that induce undefined behaviour you don't expect. If it was recompiling all packages to use glibc, the name would be more appropriate… but also still a trademark violation.
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    So, of the 49,530 images that show up with several using Alpine somewhere in the name or description... you think this is a trademark violation how? Alpine is synonymous with lightweight images. Several people and vendors use it in their image names.
    - lolc 5y ago
      I do expect images with "alpine" in the name to be based on the Alpine distro. And not some weird bastard of Alpine. And I see no problem with them asserting their trademark here.
      - encryptluks2 5y ago
        This is merely a package you install on Alpine so it isn't a fork. Did you not do any independent research and just assume? Want to move the goalposts?
    - linkdd 5y ago
      There is a difference between "python:3.10-alpine" and "alpine-glibc". One stands for: "we use alpine" (not a trademark violation) The other one stands for "this is alpine" (a trademark violation)
      - encryptluks2 5y ago
        First, the repo name is alpine-pkg-glibc because it is merely a package you install on Alpine. The container name, created by a different individual is frolvlad/alpine-glibc, and they make it clear that it is based off Alpine with the glibc package installed. In fact, you can even look at the source code. This is ridiculous, and if Alpine starts going after people for using alpine in the container image name or tag then I now know what distro to avoid entirely.
Aissen 5y ago
I've had to battle quite a few portability issues, but everytime it was a program incorrectly assuming some sort of behaviour from glibc and not really musl's fault.
- p2t2p 5y ago
  We had to stop using alpine because we have to resolve a DNS name that resolved in a 100 hosts. Musl fails to resolve that because it does not support “upgrade to TCP” and the response does not fit into single UDP packet so it gets truncated, so node fails to resolve the name. And not only node, normal Linux tools as well. And the author says it’s a feature, not a bug so for me it is kinda hard to take that thing seriously when parts of standard are unsupported.
  - ntauthority 5y ago
    Why is DNS resolution even part of the libc and not, say, the base OS, a service on the base OS, or if need be, an external library like c-ares? In fact, I thought Node already depended on c-ares, why is it failing on this?
    - silon42 5y ago
      Typically, on a modern Linux system, DNS queries from libc (and everything else) will always query a local resolver (example: systemd-resolved).
      - Spivak 5y ago
        That's up to your distro technically. DNS queries that use glibc (so everything basically) parse /etc/nsswitch.conf and follow the path of NSS modules which can do whatever they want to produce a name. The resolve module provided by systemd talks to systemd-resolved but the dns module parses /etc/resolv.conf and does the resolution itself.
    - p2t2p 5y ago
      Adding to the other responder. Traditionally, in Unix libc is part of the OS. This situation is different in Linux but Linux is an outlier here, if we look at various BSDs they keep libc in the same tree as kernel.
sgerrand 5y ago
Maintainer of the Alpine package referenced here. It's called `glibc`, makes no claims on Alpine Linux and certainly isn't a Linux distribution. You install the package in Alpine Linux, nothing else.
- deadbunny 5y ago
  Most people's experience with alpin is through containers. Given you provide `alpine-glibc` containers is likely where the confusion comes from. If you don't know the backstory one would easily assume this is an Alpine endorsed container.
  - sgerrand 5y ago
    I don't provide "alpine-glibc" Docker images or containers, so I don't really know what you're referencing here. I maintain an Alpine package called `glibc`. Please enlighten me!
tadfisher 5y ago
Try nix sometime! When I'm forced to use Docker as a container runtime, nix has made building lightweight images fairly painless without the manual dependency management I see in so many dockerfiles. https://nix.dev/tutorials/building-and-running-docker-images https://nix.dev/tutorials/building-and-running-docker-images

by dbt00 5y ago

hhsbz 5y ago

If it's alpine with glibc I don't see what's wrong with calling it that

faho 5y ago
What's wrong with that is the reason trademarks exist: Confusion. If something is called "alpine-glibc", it's reasonable to expect that it's by the alpine people and supported like alpine. This, as we see here, annoys the alpine people because they now get bug reports and support requests from people using it, and have to direct people elsewhere. And when it doesn't work, they get the hit to their image even tho they've had nothing to do with it.
- hhsbz 5y ago
  I think it's clear from the website that this is based on Alpine and not part of the project https://hub.docker.com/r/frolvlad/alpine-glibc/ https://hub.docker.com/r/frolvlad/alpine-glibc/ Without context, I think what this guy is pissed off about is that this project enables people to use alpine to run proprietary software.
  - faho 5y ago
    It doesn't outright state anywhere that it's not an official alpine product, and I don't know if everyone reads the site - many people will just copy the "FROM frolvlad/alpine-glibc" from elsewhere. In any case, the Alpine people would know, and they apparently think it's a problem. >Without context, But you have context here! It has issues with symbol versioning! There is "strange behavior and possible crashes, ". This makes alpine look bad, because people think it's the alpine project's fault! > what this guy is pissed off Please don't assume everyone is a "guy". In this case, Ariadne is not a "he" (she uses "she"), so a male-coded word like "guy" is ill-fitting.
    - im3w1l 5y ago
      FROM frolvlad/alpine-glibc That namespacing does make it look pretty unofficial to my eyes.
      - faho 5y ago
        But do you know if alpine does official docker images namespaced as e.g. alpine/? Is "alpine-glibc" an official project and someone just helpfully made the image (or an image including an official glibc package)? Or is this a prerelease? Without a deep knowledge of alpine (or now reading this post) I couldn't answer any of these questions and I'm not sure I wouldn't try to go to alpine for bug reports. I think there's a reasonable potential for confusion, even with the namespace. (but granted, I don't use docker either, so maybe this is a common thing) And I assume the alpine people (like the author) know that they get bug reports for it and that the issues with it cause bad publicity, and that that's the context for the post and the proposal to block the package.
        Karunamon 5y ago
        The answer to the first question is an obvious yes, and it's obvious to anyone that uses Docker. No deep knowledge required. If you want Alpine, you do FROM alpine:(version). https://hub.docker.com/_/alpine https://hub.docker.com/_/alpine
        faho 5y ago
        Ah, that's good to know, thanks!
        ariadneconill 5y ago
        The problem is the people who use Docker but don't know anything about it. Or don't know that mixing libcs is a problem. They use this glibc package, break their containers and then blame Alpine for the breakage.
    - MrStonedOne 5y ago
      > > what this guy is pissed off >Please don't assume everyone is a "guy". In this case, Ariadne is not a "he" (she uses "she"), so a male-coded word like "guy" is ill-fitting. Please do not mince words, people have a tenancy to refer to their own gender identity when referring to people who's gender identity they do not know. You knew what they meant. from the hn guidelines: > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
- jcelerier 5y ago
  It's the old Iceweasel story all over again. Sadly open-source is ill-equipped to handle naming issues.
diegocg 5y ago
It makes it look like an "official" project. Just give it a different name and explain that it's Alpine with glibc somewhere
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  It does not. They use Alpine in the name so people can find the image. Searching for Alpine on Docker Hub has 49,530 results. This image doesn't even show up on the first page of results. I think whoever wrote this needs to rethink how ridiculous they are being.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - op00to 5y ago
    I assumed it did.
creshal 5y ago
Except it's not, as it mixes glibc with musl in ways that induce undefined behaviour you don't expect. If it was recompiling all packages to use glibc, the name would be more appropriate… but also still a trademark violation.
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  So, of the 49,530 images that show up with several using Alpine somewhere in the name or description... you think this is a trademark violation how? Alpine is synonymous with lightweight images. Several people and vendors use it in their image names.
  - lolc 5y ago
    I do expect images with "alpine" in the name to be based on the Alpine distro. And not some weird bastard of Alpine. And I see no problem with them asserting their trademark here.
    - encryptluks2 5y ago
      This is merely a package you install on Alpine so it isn't a fork. Did you not do any independent research and just assume? Want to move the goalposts?
  - linkdd 5y ago
    There is a difference between "python:3.10-alpine" and "alpine-glibc". One stands for: "we use alpine" (not a trademark violation) The other one stands for "this is alpine" (a trademark violation)
    - encryptluks2 5y ago
      First, the repo name is alpine-pkg-glibc because it is merely a package you install on Alpine. The container name, created by a different individual is frolvlad/alpine-glibc, and they make it clear that it is based off Alpine with the glibc package installed. In fact, you can even look at the source code. This is ridiculous, and if Alpine starts going after people for using alpine in the container image name or tag then I now know what distro to avoid entirely.

Aissen 5y ago

I've had to battle quite a few portability issues, but everytime it was a program incorrectly assuming some sort of behaviour from glibc and not really musl's fault.

p2t2p 5y ago
We had to stop using alpine because we have to resolve a DNS name that resolved in a 100 hosts. Musl fails to resolve that because it does not support “upgrade to TCP” and the response does not fit into single UDP packet so it gets truncated, so node fails to resolve the name. And not only node, normal Linux tools as well. And the author says it’s a feature, not a bug so for me it is kinda hard to take that thing seriously when parts of standard are unsupported.
- ntauthority 5y ago
  Why is DNS resolution even part of the libc and not, say, the base OS, a service on the base OS, or if need be, an external library like c-ares? In fact, I thought Node already depended on c-ares, why is it failing on this?
  - silon42 5y ago
    Typically, on a modern Linux system, DNS queries from libc (and everything else) will always query a local resolver (example: systemd-resolved).
    - Spivak 5y ago
      That's up to your distro technically. DNS queries that use glibc (so everything basically) parse /etc/nsswitch.conf and follow the path of NSS modules which can do whatever they want to produce a name. The resolve module provided by systemd talks to systemd-resolved but the dns module parses /etc/resolv.conf and does the resolution itself.
  - p2t2p 5y ago
    Adding to the other responder. Traditionally, in Unix libc is part of the OS. This situation is different in Linux but Linux is an outlier here, if we look at various BSDs they keep libc in the same tree as kernel.

sgerrand 5y ago

Maintainer of the Alpine package referenced here. It's called `glibc`, makes no claims on Alpine Linux and certainly isn't a Linux distribution. You install the package in Alpine Linux, nothing else.

deadbunny 5y ago
Most people's experience with alpin is through containers. Given you provide `alpine-glibc` containers is likely where the confusion comes from. If you don't know the backstory one would easily assume this is an Alpine endorsed container.
- sgerrand 5y ago
  I don't provide "alpine-glibc" Docker images or containers, so I don't really know what you're referencing here. I maintain an Alpine package called `glibc`. Please enlighten me!

tadfisher 5y ago

Try nix sometime! When I'm forced to use Docker as a container runtime, nix has made building lightweight images fairly painless without the manual dependency management I see in so many dockerfiles. https://nix.dev/tutorials/building-and-running-docker-images https://nix.dev/tutorials/building-and-running-docker-images