Re: readutmp: load libsystemd with dlopen instead of linking

On Mon, 20 Jul 2026 at 21:00, Paul Eggert <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> On 2026-07-20 12:19, Simon Josefsson wrote:
> > Can we confirm that only 'who', 'users', and 'pinky' REQUIRE the use of
> > libsystemd for essential functionality?
>
> There's also 'uptime', which is installed optionally if you build
> coreutils with './configure --enable-install-program=uptime'. Ordinarly,
> though, I think people use procps-ng for 'uptime'. The procps-ng
> 'uptime' links libsystemd the same way that coreutils 'uptime' does,
> i.e., it's an essential dependency.
>
> And yes, these are the only coreutils programs for which libsystemd is
> required, unless you configure with --enable-single-binary in which case
> the 'coreutils' single-binary command requires libsystemd.

If it's required, why can it be disabled with a switch? Will you
accept a patch that drops the --enable-systemd option and makes the
library always mandatory on Linux? After all, it's essential and
required functionality without which coreutils doesn't work, no?