Re: Slink to potato upgrade
On Tue, Mar 23, 1999 at 11:41:52AM +0000, Kevin Dalley wrote:
> First we should make a decision as to whether glibc2.1 *should* be a
> separate soname. If so, then we should talk to the rest of the Linux
> community and decide how to resolve the issue.
This is not our decision to make. It is the decision of the upstream
authors (the decision that influenced their entire 2.1 development path),
and they have very clearly decided that for us.
You have shown no respect for their decision.
> You seem to prefer a sounding dichotomy:
>
> 1. Break many users code when they upgrade to potato.
>
> 2. Create binary incompatibility with other Linux distributions.
>
> Neither of these options is good.
No, but whether you like it or not they are the only two choices Debian
can make.
#1 sucks the least. Soname confusion is not fun. At all. It can be
nearly impossible to undo (you have to wipe a set of binaries off the face
of the planet).
> If Debian were the only distribution to use new sonames, that would be
> an area for criticism. However, if no distribution uses new sonames,
> and many applications fail, Linux as a whole will be mocked be users
> and non-users. Moral superiority is fine. Usability is essential.
It's not "many" applications though. They can be counted on two hands, and
that number will easily go down to one hand by the time potato is frozen.
(It won't go down to 0 - some of the breakage is in things like staroffice
that aren't packaged in debian)
It's not "many users code" either. It's only affecting people who don't play
by the rules and use library interfaces that don't officially exist.
I'm using glibc 2.1 right now. It works fine. If it was such a big deal, I
wouldn't be able to type this to you.
--
Robert Woodcock - rcw@debian.org
"Life is sweat." -- Wichert Akkerman, typos and all.
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