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  1. <!--#include file="header.html" -->
  2. <h3>Frequently Asked Questions</h3>
  3. This is a collection of some of the most frequently asked questions
  4. about uClibc. Some of the questions even have answers. If you
  5. have additions to this FAQ document, we would love to add them,
  6. <ol>
  7. <li><a href="#naming">Why is it called uClibc?</a>
  8. <li><a href="#platforms">What platforms does uClibc run on?</a>
  9. <li><a href="#why">Why are you doing this? What's wrong with glibc?</a>
  10. <li><a href="#doesnt_suck">So uClibc is smaller then glibc? Doesn't that mean it
  11. completely sucks? How could it be smaller and not suck?</a>
  12. <li><a href="#why_should_i">Why should I use uClibc?</a>
  13. <li><a href="#licensing">If I use uClibc, do I have to release all my source code to the world for
  14. free? I want to create a closed source commercial application and I want
  15. to protect my intellectual property.</a>
  16. <li><a href="#development">Can I use it on my x86 development system?</a>
  17. <li><a href="#shared"> Does uClibc support shared libraries?</a>
  18. <li><a href="#compiling">How do I compile programs with uClibc?</a>
  19. <li><a href="#toolchain">Do I really need to build a uClibc toolchain?</a>
  20. <li><a href="#wrapper">What happened to the old toolchain wrapper?</a>
  21. <li><a href="#dev_systems">Is a pre-compiled uClibc development system available?</a>
  22. <li><a href="#bugs">I think I found a bug in uClibc! What should I do?!</a>
  23. <li><a href="#miscompile">My package builds fine but link fails with errors like "undefined reference
  24. to __fputc_unlocked", who do I blame?!</a>
  25. <li><a href="#gnu_malloc">My package builds fine but link fails with errors like "undefined reference
  26. to rpl_realloc / rpl_malloc", who do I blame?!</a>
  27. <li><a href="#job_control">Why do I keep getting "sh: can't access tty; job control
  28. turned off" errors? Why doesn't Control-C work within my shell?</a>
  29. <li><a href="#autoconf">How do I make autoconf and automake behave?</a>
  30. <li><a href="#ldd">When I run 'ldd' to get a list of the library dependencies
  31. for a uClibc binary, ldd segfaults! What should I do?</a>
  32. <li><a href="#timezones">Why does localtime() return times in UTC even when I have my timezone set?</a>
  33. <li><a href="#history">What is the history of uClibc? Where did it come from?</a>
  34. <li><a href="#demanding">I demand that you to add &lt;favorite feature&gt; right now! How come
  35. you don't answer all my questions on the mailing list instantly? I demand
  36. that you help me with all of my problems <em>Right Now</em>!</a>
  37. <li><a href="#helpme">I need help with uClibc! What should I do?</a>
  38. <li><a href="#contracts">I need you to add &lt;favorite feature&gt;! Are the uClibc developers willing to
  39. be paid in order to fix bugs or add in &lt;favorite feature&gt;? Are you willing to provide
  40. support contracts?</a>
  41. <li><a href="#support">I think you guys are great and I want to help support your work!</a>
  42. </ol>
  43. <hr />
  44. <p>
  45. <h2><a name="naming">Why is it called uClibc?</a></h2>
  46. <p>
  47. The letter 'u' is short for µ (the greek letter "mu"). µ is commonly used
  48. as the abbreviation for the word "micro". The capital "C" is short for
  49. "controller". So the name uClibc is sortof an abbreviation for "the
  50. microcontroller C library". For simplicity, uClibc is pronounced
  51. "yew-see-lib-see".
  52. <p>
  53. The name is partly historical, since uClibc was originally
  54. created to support <a href="http://www.uclinux.org">µClinux</a>, a port of
  55. Linux for MMU-less microcontrollers such as the Dragonball, Coldfire, and
  56. ARM7TDMI. These days, uClibc also works just fine on normal Linux systems
  57. (such as i386, ARM, and PowerPC), but we couldn't think of a better name.
  58. <hr />
  59. <p>
  60. <h2><a name="platforms">What platforms does uClibc run on?</a></h2>
  61. <p>
  62. Currently uClibc runs on alpha, ARM, cris, i386, i960, h8300,
  63. m68k, mips/mipsel, PowerPC, SH, SPARC, and v850 processors.
  64. <hr />
  65. <p>
  66. <h2><a name="why">Why are you doing this? What's wrong with glibc?</a></h2>
  67. <p>
  68. Initially, the project began since the GNU C library lacked support for
  69. MMU-less systems, and because glibc is very large. The GNU C library is
  70. designed with a very different set of goals then uClibc. The GNU C library
  71. is a great piece of software, make no mistake. It is compliant with just
  72. about every standard ever created, and runs on just about every operating
  73. system and architecture -- no small task! But there is a price to be paid
  74. for that. It is quite a large library, and keeps getting larger with each
  75. release. It does not even pretend to target embedded systems. To quote
  76. from Ulrich Drepper, the maintainer of GNU libc: "...glibc is not the right
  77. thing for [an embedded OS]. It is designed as a native library (as opposed
  78. to embedded). Many functions (e.g., printf) contain functionality which is
  79. not wanted in embedded systems." 24 May 1999
  80. <hr />
  81. <p>
  82. <h2><a name="doesnt_suck">So uClibc is smaller then glibc? Doesn't that mean it completely sucks?
  83. How could it be smaller and not suck?</a></h2>
  84. <p>
  85. <p>
  86. uClibc and glibc have different goals. glibc strives for features
  87. and performance, and is targeted for desktops and servers with
  88. (these days) lots of resources. It also strives for ABI stability.
  89. <p>
  90. On the other hand, the goal of uClibc is to provide as much functionality
  91. as possible in a small amount of space, and it is intended primarily for
  92. embedded use. It is also highly configurable in supported features, at the
  93. cost of ABI differences for different configurations. uClibc has been
  94. designed from the ground up to be a C library for embedded Linux. We don't
  95. need to worry about things like MS-DOS support, or BeOS, or AmigaOs any
  96. other system. This lets us cut out a lot of complexity and very carefully
  97. optimize for Linux.
  98. <p>
  99. In other cases, uClibc leaves certain features (such as full C99 Math
  100. library support, wordexp, IPV6, and RPC support) disabled by default.
  101. Those features can be enabled for people that need them, but are otherwise
  102. disabled to save space.
  103. <p>
  104. Some of the space savings in uClibc is obtained at the cost of performance,
  105. and some is due to sacrificing features. Much of it comes from aggressive
  106. refactoring of code to eliminate redundancy. In regards to locale data,
  107. elimination of redundant data storage resulted in substantial space
  108. savings. The result is a libc that currently includes the features needed
  109. by nearly all applications and yet is considerably smaller than glibc. To
  110. compare "apples to apples", if you take uClibc and compile in locale data
  111. for about 170 UTF-8 locales, then uClibc will take up about 570k. If you
  112. take glibc and add in locale data for the same 170 UTF-8 locales, you will
  113. need over 30MB!!!
  114. <p>
  115. The end result is a C library that will compile just about everything you
  116. throw at it, that looks like glibc to application programs when you
  117. compile, and is many times smaller.
  118. <hr />
  119. <p>
  120. <h2><a name="why_should_i">Why should I use uClibc?</a></h2>
  121. <p>
  122. I don't know if you should use uClibc or not. It depends on your needs.
  123. If you are building an embedded Linux system and you are tight on space, then
  124. using uClibc instead if glibc may be a very good idea.
  125. <p>
  126. If you are building an embedded Linux system and you find that
  127. glibc is eating up too much space, you should consider using
  128. uClibc. If you are building a huge fileserver with 12 Terabytes
  129. of storage, then using glibc may make more sense. Unless, for
  130. example, that 12 Terabytes will be Network Attached Storage and
  131. you plan to burn Linux into the system's firmware...
  132. <hr />
  133. <p>
  134. <h2><a name="licensing">If I use uClibc, do I have to release all my source code to the world for
  135. free? I want to create a closed source commercial application and I want
  136. to protect my intellectual property.</a></h2>
  137. <p>
  138. No, you do not need to give away your application source code just because
  139. you use uClibc and/or run on Linux. uClibc is licensed under the <a
  140. href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html">Lesser GPL</a> licence, just
  141. like the GNU C library (glibc). Please read this licence, or have a lawyer
  142. read this licence if you have any questions. Here is my brief summary...
  143. Using shared libraries makes complying with the license easy. You can
  144. distribute a closed source application which is linked with an unmodified
  145. uClibc shared library. In this case, you do not need to give away any
  146. source code for your application. Please consider sharing some of the
  147. money you make with us! :-)
  148. <p>
  149. If you make any changes to uClibc, and distribute uClibc or distribute any
  150. applications using your modified version, you must also distribute the
  151. source code for uClibc containing all of your changes.
  152. <p>
  153. If you distribute an application which has uClibc statically linked, you
  154. must also make your application available as an object file which can later
  155. be re-linked against updated versions of uClibc. This will (in theory)
  156. allow your customers to apply uClibc bug fixes to your application. You do
  157. not need to make the application object file available to everyone, just to
  158. those you gave the fully linked application.
  159. <hr />
  160. <p>
  161. <h2><a name="development">Can I use it on my x86 development system?</a></h2>
  162. <p>
  163. Sure! In fact, this can be very nice during development. By
  164. installing uClibc on your development system, you can be sure that
  165. the code you are working on will actually run when you deploy it on
  166. your target system.
  167. <hr />
  168. <p>
  169. <h2><a name="shared"> Does uClibc support shared libraries?</a></h2>
  170. <p>
  171. Yes. uClibc has native shared library support on i386, ARM, mips,
  172. SH, CRIS, and PowerPC processors. Other architectures can use shared
  173. libraries but will need to use the GNU libc shared library loader.
  174. <p>
  175. Shared Libraries are not currently supported by uClibc on MMU-less systems.
  176. <a href="http://www.snapgear.com/">SnapGear</a> has implemented
  177. shared library support for MMU-less systems, however, so if you need MMU-less
  178. shared library support they may be able to help.
  179. <hr />
  180. <p>
  181. <h2><a name="compiling">How do I compile programs with uClibc?</a></h2>
  182. <p>
  183. You will need to have your own uClibc toolchain. A toolchain consists
  184. of <a href="http://sources.redhat.com/binutils/">GNU binutils</a>,
  185. <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/">the gcc compiler</a>, and uClibc, all
  186. built to produce binaries for your target system linked with uClibc.
  187. You can build your own native uClibc toolchain using the
  188. <a href="http://buildroot.uclibc.org/">uClibc buildroot system</a>.
  189. <p>
  190. To build your own uClibc toolchain, follow the following simple
  191. steps:
  192. <ul>
  193. <li> Point your web browser <a href="http://buildroot.uclibc.org/">here</a>,
  194. <li> Download of copy of buildroot
  195. <li> Unpack the tarball on your Linux system somewhere
  196. <li> Edit the Makefile as needed if you wish to change anything.
  197. <li> run 'unset CC'. Then run 'unset CXX'. Some Linux systems
  198. (i.e. Gentoo) set variables such as 'CC' in the system environment
  199. which really messes things up when cross compiling.
  200. <li> run 'make menuconfig'
  201. <li> Select the things you want to build. If you <em>only</em> want a
  202. toolchain, leave everything except the toolchain disabled.
  203. <li> save your buildroot configuration.
  204. <li> run 'make'
  205. <li> go eat a nice wholesome sandwich, drink a pop, call a friend,
  206. play a video game, and generally find something to do. While you
  207. are waiting, buildroot will download all the needed source code and
  208. then compile things up for you.
  209. <li> You should now have a shiny new toolchain, and maybe even a shiny
  210. new uClibc based root filesystem or development system, depending on
  211. the options you selected.
  212. </ul>
  213. <hr />
  214. <p>
  215. <h2><a name="toolchain">Do I really need to build a uClibc toolchain?</a></h2>
  216. <p>
  217. Yes, you really do need to build a toolchain to produce uClibc binaries.
  218. We used to provide a toolchain wrapper, but that has been removed due to
  219. numerous problems. The uClibc developers have gone to a lot of trouble
  220. to produce the
  221. <a href="http://buildroot.uclibc.org/">uClibc buildroot system</a>,
  222. which makes it easy to build your own uClibc toolchain and/or an initial
  223. uClibc based system.
  224. <p>
  225. Feel free to take the gcc and binutils patches we provide and use them in
  226. your own toolchain build system. If you choose to use your own toolchain
  227. build system, you will need to use these patches since the upstream GNU
  228. binutils and gcc releases do not currently have full support for building a
  229. uClibc toolchain.
  230. <hr />
  231. <p>
  232. <h2><a name="wrapper">What happened to the old toolchain wrapper?</a></h2>
  233. <p>
  234. It is possible in some limited cases to re-use an existing glibc toolchain
  235. and subvert it into building uClibc binaries by using gcc commands such as
  236. "-nostdlib" and "-nostdinc". In fact, this used to be the recommended
  237. method for compiling programs with uClibc, and we made this easy to do by
  238. providing a uClibc toolchain wrapper, which attempted to automagically subvert
  239. an existing glibc toolchain.
  240. <p>
  241. This toolchain wrapper was removed from uClibc 0.9.22, and it will not be
  242. coming back. This is because it proved impossible to completely subvert an
  243. existing toolchain in many cases, and therefore proved to be a real
  244. maintainence burder. As uClibc became more capable, the many problems with
  245. re-using an existing glibc toolchain led us to conclude that the only safe
  246. and sane way to build uClibc binaries was to use a uClibc toolchain.
  247. <p>
  248. Some discussion on the reasoning behind this decision can be found here:
  249. <a href="http://www.uclibc.org/lists/uclibc/2003-October/007315.html">
  250. http://www.uclibc.org/lists/uclibc/2003-October/007315.html</a>
  251. in the uClibc mailing list archives.
  252. <hr />
  253. <p>
  254. <h2><a name="dev_systems">Is a pre-compiled uClibc development system available?</a></h2>
  255. <p>
  256. If you want to be <em>really</em> lazy and start using uClibc right away
  257. without needing to compile your own toolchain or anything, you can grab a
  258. pre-compiled uClibc development system. These are currently available for
  259. <a href="http://www.uclibc.org/downloads/root_fs_arm.ext2.bz2">arm</a>,
  260. <a href="http://www.uclibc.org/downloads/root_fs_armeb.ext2.bz2">armeb</a>,
  261. <a href="http://www.uclibc.org/downloads/root_fs_i386.ext2.bz2">i386</a>,
  262. <a href="http://www.uclibc.org/downloads/root_fs_mips.ext2.bz2">mips</a>,
  263. <a href="http://www.uclibc.org/downloads/root_fs_mipsel.ext2.bz2">mipsel</a>,
  264. <a href="http://www.uclibc.org/downloads/root_fs_powerpc.ext2.bz2">powerpc</a>, and
  265. <a href="http://www.uclibc.org/downloads/root_fs_sh4.ext2.bz2">sh4</a>.
  266. <p>
  267. These are bzip2 compressed ext2 filesystems containing all the development
  268. software you need to build your own uClibc applications, including: bash, awk,
  269. make, gcc, g++, autoconf, automake, ncurses, zlib, openssl, openssh, gdb,
  270. strace, busybox, GNU coreutils, GNU tar, GNU grep, etc.
  271. <p>
  272. Each of these uClibc development systems was created using
  273. <a href="http://buildroot.uclibc.org/">buildroot</a>, specifically,
  274. <a href="http://www.uclibc.org/downloads/buildroot.tar.bz2">buildroot.tar.bz2</a>
  275. along with <a href="http://www.uclibc.org/downloads/buildroot-sources">these sources</a>.
  276. <p>
  277. These development systems should provide pretty much everything you need to get
  278. started building your own applications with uClibc. Once you download one of
  279. these systems, you can then boot into it, loop mount it, dd it to a spare drive
  280. and use a tool such as resize2fs to make it fill a partition... Whatever works
  281. best for you.
  282. <p>
  283. The quickest way to get started using a root_fs image (using the i386
  284. platform as an example) is:
  285. <ul>
  286. <li>Download root_fs_i386.bz2 from uclibc.org</li>
  287. <li>bunzip2 root_fs_i386.bz2</li>
  288. <li>mkdir root_fs</li>
  289. <li>su root</li>
  290. <li>mount -o loop root_fs_i386 root_fs</li>
  291. <li>chroot root_fs /bin/su -</li>
  292. </ul>
  293. Type "exit" to end the chroot session and return to the host system.
  294. <p>
  295. <hr />
  296. <p>
  297. <h2><a name="bugs">I think I found a bug in uClibc! What should I do?</a></h2>
  298. <p>
  299. If you find a problem with uClibc, please submit a detailed bug report to
  300. the uClibc mailing list at <a href="mailto:uclibc@mail.uclibc.org">
  301. uclibc@mail.uclibc.org</a>. Please do not send private email to Erik
  302. (the maintainer of uClibc) asking for private help unless you are planning
  303. on paying for consulting services. When we answer questions on the uClibc
  304. mailing list, it helps everyone, while private answers help only you...
  305. A well-written bug report should include an example that demonstrates the
  306. problem behaviors and enables anyone else to duplicate the bug on their own
  307. machine. For larger applications where it may prove difficult to provide
  308. an example application, we recommend that you use a tool such as gdb,
  309. strace, ltrace, and or valgrind to create a logfile showing the problem
  310. behavior.
  311. <hr />
  312. <p>
  313. <h2><a name="miscompile">My package builds fine but link fails with errors like
  314. "undefined reference to __fputc_unlocked", who do I blame?!</a></h2>
  315. <p>
  316. This error crops up when a build system mixes system headers (say glibc)
  317. with the target headers (say uClibc). Make sure your build system is not
  318. including extraneous include options (-I) and double check that it is using
  319. the correct compiler. Many build systems incorrectly force things like
  320. -I/usr/include or -I/usr/local/include or -I${prefix}/include (which usually
  321. just expands to -I/usr/include).
  322. <hr />
  323. <p>
  324. <h2><a name="gnu_malloc">My package builds fine but link fails with errors like "undefined reference
  325. to rpl_realloc / rpl_malloc", who do I blame?!</a></h2>
  326. <p>
  327. This error crops up because you didn't enable MALLOC_GLIBC_COMPAT support.
  328. Configure scripts detect whether your libc supports "GNU malloc" features by
  329. seeing whether malloc(0) returns NULL (glibc malloc(0) will return a non NULL
  330. pointer). uClibc defaults to malloc(0) returning NULL so autoconf will assume
  331. malloc from your libc sucks and procede to try and compile the malloc replacement
  332. version in the gnulib addon. However, since not many packages include gnulib,
  333. they will fail to link with rpl_realloc / rpl_malloc errors. You could force
  334. configure to assume working behavior by exporting the variables 'jm_cv_func_working_malloc'
  335. (older autoconf) and 'ac_cv_func_malloc_0_nonnull' (newer autoconf) to 'yes'
  336. before running `./configure`.
  337. <hr />
  338. <p>
  339. <h2><a name="job_control">Why do I keep getting "sh: can't access tty; job control
  340. turned off" errors? Why doesn't Control-C work within my shell?</a></h2>
  341. <p>
  342. This isn't really a uClibc question, but I'll answer it here anyways. Job
  343. control will be turned off since your shell can not obtain a controlling
  344. terminal. This typically happens when you run your shell on /dev/console.
  345. The kernel will not provide a controlling terminal on the /dev/console
  346. device. Your should run your shell on a normal tty such as tty1 or ttyS0
  347. and everything will work perfectly. If you <em>REALLY</em> want your shell
  348. to run on /dev/console, then you can hack your kernel (if you are into that
  349. sortof thing) by changing drivers/char/tty_io.c to change the lines where
  350. it sets "noctty = 1;" to instead set it to "0". I recommend you instead
  351. run your shell on a real console...
  352. <hr />
  353. <p>
  354. <h2><a name="autoconf">How do I make autoconf and automake behave?</a></h2>
  355. <p>
  356. When you are cross-compiling, autoconf and automake are known to behave
  357. badly. This is because a large number of configure scripts (such as the
  358. one from openssh) try to actually execute applications that were cross
  359. compiled for your target system. This is bad, since of course these won't
  360. run, and this will also prevent your programs from compiling. You need to
  361. complain to the authors of these programs and ask them to fix their broken
  362. configure scripts.
  363. <hr />
  364. <p>
  365. <h2><a name="ldd">When I run 'ldd' to get a list of the library dependencies
  366. for a uClibc binary, ldd segfaults! What should I do?</a></h2>
  367. <p>
  368. Use the ldd that is built by uClibc, not your system's one. You can build
  369. uClibc'd ldd for your host system by going into the uClibc/utils/ directory
  370. in the uClibc source and running 'make ldd.host'.
  371. <p>
  372. When your system's ldd looks for library dependencies, it actually _runs_
  373. that program. This works fine -- usually. It generally will not work at
  374. all when you have been cross compiling (which is why ldd segfaults). The
  375. ldd program created by uClibc is cross platform and doesn't mind at all if
  376. it cannot execute the target program. If you use the uClibc version of
  377. 'ldd', it will do the right thing and produce correct results, even when it
  378. is used on cross compiled binaries.
  379. <hr />
  380. <p>
  381. <h2><a name="timezones">Why does localtime() return times in UTC even when I have my timezone set?</a></h2>
  382. <p>
  383. The uClibc time functions get timezone information from the TZ environment
  384. variable, as described in the Single Unix Specification Version 3. See
  385. <a href="http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/basedefs/xbd_chap08.html">
  386. http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/basedefs/xbd_chap08.html</a>
  387. for details on valid settings of TZ. For some additional examples, read
  388. <a href="http://www.uclibc.org/lists/uclibc/2002-August/004010.html">
  389. http://www.uclibc.org/lists/uclibc/2002-August/004010.html</a> in the uClibc
  390. mailing list archive.
  391. You can store the value of TZ in the file '/etc/TZ' and uClibc will then
  392. automagically use the specified setting.
  393. <hr />
  394. <p>
  395. <h2><a name="history">What is the history of uClibc? Where did it come from?</a></h2>
  396. <p>
  397. uClibc started off as a fork on the <a
  398. href="http://www.cix.co.uk/~mayday/">Linux-8086 C library</a>, which is
  399. part of the <a href="http://www.elks.ecs.soton.ac.uk/">elks project</a>.
  400. The Linux-8086 C library was, apparently, largely written from scratch but
  401. also borrowed code from libc4, glibc, some Atari library code, with bits
  402. and pieces from about 20 other places.
  403. <p>
  404. I had for some time been despairing over the state of C libraries in Linux.
  405. GNU libc, the standard, is very poorly suited to embedded systems and has
  406. been getting bigger with every release. I spent quite a bit of time
  407. looking over the available Open Source C libraries that I knew of, and none
  408. of them really impressed me. I felt there was a real vacancy in the
  409. embedded Linux ecology. The closest library to what I imagined an embedded
  410. C library should be was uClibc. But it had a lot of problems too -- not
  411. the least of which was that, traditionally, uClibc required a complete
  412. source tree fork in order to support each and every new platform. This
  413. resulted in a big mess of twisty versions, all different. I decided to fix
  414. it and the result is what you see here.
  415. <p>
  416. To start with, (with some initial help from <a
  417. href="http://www.uclinux.org/developers/">D. Jeff Dionne</a>), I ported
  418. uClibc to run on i386. I then grafted in the header files from glibc and
  419. cleaned up the resulting breakage. This (plus some additional work) has
  420. made it much less dependant on kernel headers, a large departure from its
  421. traditional tightly-coupled-to-the-kernel origins. I have written and/or
  422. rewritten a number of things that were missing or broken, and sometimes
  423. grafted in bits of code from the current glibc and libc5. I have also
  424. added a proper configuration system which allows you to easily select your
  425. target architecture and enable and disable various features. Many people
  426. have helped by testing, contributing ports to new architectures, and adding
  427. support for missing features.
  428. <p>
  429. In particular, around the end of 2000, Manuel Novoa III got involved with
  430. uClibc. One of his first contributions was the original gcc wrapper (which
  431. has since been removed). Since then, he has written virtually all of the
  432. current uClibc stdio, time, string, ctype, locale, and wchar-related code,
  433. as well as much of stdlib and various other bits throught the library.
  434. <p>
  435. These days, uClibc is being developed and enhanced by Erik Andersen
  436. and Manuel Novoa III of
  437. <a href="http://codepoet-consulting.com/">CodePoet Consulting</a>
  438. along with the rest of the embedded Linux community.
  439. <hr />
  440. <p>
  441. <h2><a name="demanding">I demand that you to add &lt;favorite feature&gt; right now! How come
  442. you don't answer all my questions on the mailing list instantly? I demand
  443. that you help me with all of my problems <em>Right Now</em>!</a></h2>
  444. <p>
  445. You have not paid us a single cent and yet you still have the
  446. product of several years of work from Erik and Manuel and
  447. many other people. We are not your slaves! We work on uClibc
  448. because we find it interesting. If you go off flaming us, we will
  449. ignore you.
  450. <hr />
  451. <p>
  452. <h2><a name="helpme">I need help with uClibc! What should I do?</a></h2>
  453. <p>
  454. If you find that you need help with uClibc, you can ask for help on the
  455. uClibc mailing list at uclibc@mail.uclibc.org. In addition to the uClibc
  456. mailing list, Erik and Manuel are also known to sometimes hang out on the
  457. uClibc IRC channel: #uclibc on irc.freenode.net.
  458. <p>
  459. <b>Please do not send private email to Erik and/or Manuel asking for
  460. private help unless you are planning on paying for consulting services.</b>
  461. When we answer questions on the uClibc mailing list, it helps everyone
  462. since people with similar problems in the future will be able to get help
  463. by searching the mailing list archives. Private help is reserved as a paid
  464. service. If you need to use private communication, or if you are serious
  465. about getting timely assistance with uClibc, you should seriously consider
  466. paying for consulting time.
  467. <p>
  468. <hr />
  469. <p>
  470. <h2><a name="contracts">I need you to add &lt;favorite feature&gt;! Are the uClibc developers willing to
  471. be paid in order to fix bugs or add in &lt;favorite feature&gt;? Are you willing to provide
  472. support contracts?</a></h2>
  473. <p>
  474. Sure! Now you have our attention! What you should do is contact <a
  475. href="mailto:andersen@codepoet.org">Erik Andersen</a> of <a
  476. href="http://codepoet-consulting.com/">CodePoet Consulting</a> to bid
  477. on your project. If Erik is too busy to personally add your feature, there
  478. are several other active uClibc contributors who will almost certainly be able
  479. to help you out. Erik can contact them and ask them about their availability.
  480. <hr />
  481. <p>
  482. <h2><a name="support">I think you guys are great and I want to help support your work!</a></h2>
  483. <p>
  484. Wow, that would be great! You can click here to help support uClibc and/or request features.
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  497. If you prefer to contact us directly for payments, hardware donations,
  498. support requests, etc., you can contact
  499. <a href="http://codepoet-consulting.com/">CodePoet Consulting</a> here.
  500. <hr />
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