Glibc 2.39 Should Be Out On 1 February & Might Drop Itanium IA64 Linux Support

A release plan has been drafted for the upcoming GNU C Library "glibc" 2.39 release as well as some possible last minute changes.

Like clockwork, new Glibc releases tend to happen every February and August. With Glibc 2.39, the plan is to release on 1 February. For that to happen now through next week is a "slushy ABI freeze" as feature development winds down while after 11 January is when there will be a hard ABI freeze with this libc implementation to focus just on bug fixes and no ABI changes. Andreas Huettel laid out the Glibc 2.39 release plans on the mailing list.

The release plan also laid out some possible last minute features including C23 stdbit.h support, removing the Itanium IA-64 Linux target (ia64-linux-gnu), and adding clone3 support for multiple architectures. Intel Itanium IA-64 support was dropped in the Linux 6.7 kernel as part of the planned retirement of the Linux Itanium support. With the upstream kernel support removed, Glibc has no reason to continue maintaining their support especially given the dwindling use of Itanium hardware especially as it concerns those running upstream open-source software stacks.

As of writing the Itanium IA-64 removal hasn't yet happened in Glibc Git, but don't be surprised if it does before the glibc 2.39 release. Farewell and it was also previously dropped from the GCC compiler.

Glibc 2.39 is also bringing various optimized functions for newer CPU instructions that can be quite exciting, HWCAPs for LoongArch, CET Shadow Stack support to go along with Linux 6.6+, and adopting a Code of Conduct, among other changes.

The Glibc 2.39 release plan can be found on the libc-alpha mailing list.