I think this has been discussed on LQ before, but I cannot
find it. My google fu must be weak today.

So, why are all of the glibc sub packages (sans profile)
included in the glibc base package?

Specifically, why the zoneinfo package? I am working on a
proposal for some changes to it, and having it in the
base package does cause some issues (which I will
discuss with the proposed patch).

Thanks in advance for your replies.

I do not know why, but this has an inconvenience for the Slint project: in the next release I plan to ship timeconfig in an internationalized glibc-zoneinfo package (instead as in a big slint package installed after all other packages as we do now).

But as glibc is installed after glibc-zoneinfo I had to edit the "setup" script to reinstall glic-zoneinfo just after the INSTALL step of the installation to get back the internationalized timeconfig that has just been overridden if glibc has been installed. No big issue though, as it is highly improbable that glibc be upgraded during the life of a stable version.

EDIT: I should have checked before writing... Actually glibc _and_ all glic-* packages have been, not upgraded, but _rebuilt_ for Slackware 14.1. So far, so good, but it is true that not shipping twice the locale definitions would save some MB on the distribution media. But that's up to Pat anyway.

In a related topic I plan to try your patch that we _could_ apply if all goes well, regardless of Pat's decision about it. I have noticed long ago that the proposed check-list was a bit too long but been too lazy to investigate further, so thanks

If it turns out that zoneinfo must be included in the base
package, I have a solution in mind that will be simpler for you. Also,
your case adds a new line item to my justification list for making a
change to the zoneinfo package.

True, except zoneinfo was upgraded; causing the base package to be
out of sync with the zoneinfo package in the stable branch. That is
one of the problems involved with having zoneinfo in the base package.
Right now, if a sysadmin has to reinstall the base package it will
clobber zoneinfo, they may not be aware of that.

The glibc project has no build, nor runtime, dependencies on zoneinfo. I
cannot think of a reason that it must be included in the base package,
which is why I posted this RFC. Perhaps I'm missing something? I am
hoping Pat, or a core member will weigh in on the subject.

You're sure welcome. I was hoping that you might test it, because you
work with the installer a lot and I haven't tested all of the
possibilities in that environment.

I thought of your project while working on the patch, as I assume that
someone already internationalizes the zone1970.tab file. That may save
you, and you project's translators, some effort?

On my todo list is adding a tzselect type interface to timeconfig, along
with some other needed (IMHO) changes. But not this cycle, perhaps the
next one.