Re: libraries being removed from the archive
Chris Cheney <ccheney@cheney.cx> writes:
> On Sun, Aug 03, 2003 at 03:55:41PM -0400, David Z Maze wrote:
>> Chris Cheney <ccheney@cheney.cx> writes:
>>
>> > IMHO we need to make an addition to policy stating that an old lib can
>> > not be removed from the archive until no other packages still depend on
>> > it.
>>
>> So say I maintain foo. The source package produces two binary
>> packages, foo and libfoo1. Now, there's a new foo release, that
>> changes libfoo's soname. In the current scheme, I package the new
>> upstream release and upload foo and libfoo2; since there's no source
>> package for libfoo1, it eventually gets removed from unstable.
>>
>> Are you proposing that (a) the ftpmasters not remove libfoo1, or (b)
>> that package maintainers of library packages are now compelled to
>> package the last version of foo's source providing libfoo1 separately,
>> potentially for multiple release cycles for a widely used library?
>> Option (b) sounds problematic to me...
>
> libfoo1 gets automatically removed immediately upon installation of
> libfoo2 in the archive currently. The proper way to fix this issue
> is when the maintainer uploads new libfoo source with libfoo2 package
> in it to also upload a source called libfoo1 that only provides the
> libfoo1 binary package [0]. I have done this myself for libao0 in the
> past. Once libfoo1 is no longer used by anything you can simply remove
> it from the archive without having to modify anything. I seriously
> doubt at the speed of Debian's "release cycle" you would need to have
> the old library in the archive for more than one release, probably not
> even that long. You do realize that Debian's "release cycle" is
> currently 2 years per release...?
>
I'd just upload a package for the new source, as long as it only
breaks binary compatibility (vs. source-level-compat), so a simple
rebuild will fix depending packages. A little unstable breakage isn't
that bad IMO, as long as there aren't a lot of packages depending on
the lib. For libraries that bump soname often (i.e. most C++
libraries, at least), your method will put more strain on the
ftpmasters (not that I'm one, but whatever), since they will have to
accept the new packages, and then (additionally) remove the old source
package (when it's no longer used).
Regards, Andy
--
Andreas Rottmann | Rotty@ICQ | 118634484@ICQ | a.rottmann@gmx.at
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Packages should build-depend on what they should build-depend.
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