Re: gcc 3.2 transition in unstable
On Mon, Jan 06, 2003 at 04:56:58PM +0000, Eduardo Pérez Ureta wrote:
> Richard Kettlewell wrote:
> > The kind of backwards compatibility that the transition plan appears
> > to break is the ability to have old libraries and new libraries on the
> > same system at all.
> >
> > This is a problem for anyone who has linked anything against the old
> > libraries; they must recompile and relink (which might require
> > modifying the code, since the compiler and libraries have changed).
> >
> > In previous similar transitions, Debian has avoided breaking such
> > programs. Not this time, apparently. It is this that I think should
> > either be fixed or more heavily emphasized.
>
> I'm also opposed to this form of transition like other Debian developers.
> I would like to see all the sonames changed.
>
> The only question that Debian users should be asked is:
> Do we want breakage with programs of other distributions as of the
> sonames change (with a short transition time and no breakage in Debian),
> or do we want breakage with Debian itself as of the sonames are maintained
> (with a long transition time and lots of breakage in Debian)?
Sorry, Eduardo, but to be blunt: it's too late. We spent a long time
discussing this; it's not an accident that this specific question is
addressed in the transition plan. Changing sonames is out of the
question; it would move us directly away from LSB compliance, rendering
C++ support incompatible with other distributions.
The whole point of this transition is future compatibility!
> But, I will support the transition if the Debian project officially states
> that this is the last API/ABI transition without changing the sonames.
> And the next other API/ABI change in KDE or other C++ program or even C
> program MUST change the sonames even if other distributions don't change the
> sonames when changing the API/ABI.
>
> Will you support this proposal?
This is very short-sighted. No one can make these kinds of promises;
every transition must be taken on its own merits, on a case-by-case
basis. However, one of the biggest goals of this transition is that
future C++ ABI issues can be handled more gracefully.
--
Daniel Jacobowitz
MontaVista Software Debian GNU/Linux Developer
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