Re: Slink to potato upgrade
Kevin Dalley <kevin@seti-inst.edu> wrote:
> Whether the application is written "correctly" or not, if the
> application has enough users, and was supported, however
> inadvertently, under the old libraries, users will have problems
> with the libraries. Moral superiority doesn't fix the user's broken
> software.
True words.
> First we should make a decision as to whether glibc2.1 *should* be a
> separate soname.
I don't think so, unless other distributions or the upstream
maintainers do this, too.
> If so, then we should talk to the rest of the Linux community and
> decide how to resolve the issue.
> You seem to prefer a sounding dichotomy:
> 1. Break many users code when they upgrade to potato.
A worse solution. When I upgrade from one library to a newer one with
the same soname, this should not break any programs which worked with
the old library.
If this isn't possible with glibc 2.1, this library is simply broken
and should be fixed (either by the upstream author or by the Debian
maintainer). Telling me that this is the problem of the applications
which break, is worse style IMHO. A library with the same soname and a
bigger version number has to be 100% compatible to the prior one and
if there were some "internal functions" which were used before and
which are no longer available, then the new library has to implement
these functions for backward compatibility until the soname changes.
> 2. Create binary incompatibility with other Linux distributions.
> Neither of these options is good.
Fully agree.
So we IMHO have the choice between the following two ways:
3. Fix the problems in glibc 2.1 and make it fully compatible to
glibc 2.0 like the soname says (optimal solution, but maybe not
trivial to realize for the glibc-maintainers).
4. Create a glibc2.0 "oldlibs" package which automatically installs
when glibc 2.1 is installed and which automatically creates
wrappers for all programs the break with glibc 2.1 (is there a
list of these programs/packages available?). This should work in a
way similar to xaw-wrappers.
5. Step back to glibc 2.0 until either 3. or 4. are realized.
> 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.
That's the point.
Tschoeeee
Roland
--
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