> Go originally wanted to not have to link any system libraries, something that does not actually work
It does work on Linux, the only kernel that promises a stable binary interface to user space.
It does work on Linux, the only kernel that promises a stable binary interface to user space.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Domain_name_resolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_Service_Switch
https://man.archlinux.org/man/getaddrinfo.3
This is user space stuff. You can trash all of this and roll your own mechanism to resolve the names however you want. Go probably did so. Linux will not complain in any way whatsoever.
Linux is the only kernel that lets you do this. Other kernels will break your software if you bypass their system libraries.
It's just that those executables are going to have to resolve names all by themselves. Chances are they aren't going to do it exactly like glibc does. That may or may not be a problem.
I'm curious. Why isn't getaddrinfo implemented in a similar manner to the loaders that graphics APIs use? Shouldn't that functionality be the responsibility of whatever resolver has been installed?
The only point I'm making is: Linux does not require glibc.
Users and their programs usually do require glibc but that's their choice. It's not mandated. People could theoretically rewrite the entire Linux user space in pure freestanding Rust if they wanted to.
Name Service Switch is just a solution to a problem. There's no law that says Linux systems must have that system. Programs that depend on it will break if it's not there but that's not the fault of Linux.