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Re: Preliminary SDL 1.2.3+cvs packages available



On Mon, Mar 04, 2002 at 09:15:48AM -0500, Daniel Burrows wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 04, 2002 at 05:44:41AM -0800, Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@bluecherry.net> was heard to say:
> >  - This undoes the changes Branden made back in October which altered the
> >    SDL ABI.  This means that apps using  SDL MAY NEED TO BE RECOMPILED,
> >    though the half a dozen games I have linked against the old libs just
> >    worked fine for me.
> 
>   Out of curiosity, why, and do these solve the problems we had with SDL
> that prompted the changes?  (failures to compile or problems with
> programs that linked against it on non-i386 architectures, IIRC)

Yes, they do.  Sam Lantinga, Joseph, and I got together in IRC and
hashed this out yesterday.

The best solution, which is what is being adopted here, is something
that was far beyond the scope of any Debian package maintainer to do:

Sam is incorporating the source code of the troublesome 3 X extension
libraries into the SDL tree and renaming the symbols.  This is
impervious to damage from everything except a backwards-incompatible
change in the XFree86 X server's implementation of the corresponding protocol
extensions.  This is unlikely to happen, since the protocol extensions
include versioning information, and XFree86 can probably be persuaded
not to drop server-side support for the versions of these extensions
supported in 4.1.0 and 4.2.0.

All other solutions, including most folks' much-beloved "just link those
_pic.a's into the SDL shared object and damn the consequences -- I N33D
MY G4M3Z, D00D!!!!1111!1!", were unacceptable to one degree or another
to Sam.

So, the next version of SDL should put this issue to bed in a way that
doesn't rely on Linux distributions being:

1) clueful
2) concerned that solutions work on architectures other than i386
3) respectful of XFree86's wishes regarding which extension libraries
   should be static and which shared

>   Also, why are you about to upload a CVS snapshot of a working package
> shortly before we freeze?

I agree that it would be a bad idea to disrupt all our SDL-based
packages this close to freeze.  The goal desired by some people, which
is compatibility with all other Linux distributions, is probably
impossible anyway (see below).

>   Is it related to this?
>   * Upstream fix for #114808 brings Debian's ABI back inline with that
>     used by other distributions (Closes: #136237)

This bug description is a red herring.  Sam pointed out that several
versions of SuSE do things wrongly, but in a different way than the old
Red Hat way (shared X extension libs).  I.e., we could be compatible
with Red Hat 6.2 and SuSE 7.3 but not Red Hat 7.0 and Mandrake 7.1, or
whatever.

There is no way to guarantee Debian's compatibility even with other
major Linux distros because each distro came up with its own kludgey
solution to this problem.

The IRC conference was quite productive and enjoyable.  See?  There are
advantages to not telling upstream authors to go pound sound; we'll do
whatever the f*** we want.  Maybe some other distributors could learn
from this, but they probably won't.  It's not good for the bottom line
to think things out, and work with people.

-- 
G. Branden Robinson                |     If God had intended for man to go
Debian GNU/Linux                   |     about naked, we would have been
branden@debian.org                 |     born that way.
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |

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