Re: Library packages depending on data files

[Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Adrian Bunk wrote:
>On Thu, Feb 05, 2004 at 01:37:45PM +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote:
>> Because ABI breaks may be accompanied by large API breaks, and
>> applications that we wish to ship may not be ported to the new API. See
>> the large number of GTK 1 applications, for instance. Not all Gnome 1
>> applications have been ported to Gnome 2, and refusing to support those
>> on the basis that it makes testing a bit uglier for a while is foolish.
>> Not to mention the closed-source applications that we wish people to be
>> able to run.
>
>I understand this problem for GNOME.
>
>But GNOME is an exception, the vast majority of new so-versions of 
>libraries don't contain large API breaks.

But the only case where it's really caused a problem is in GNOME, and
it's necessary for us to have the ability to install different SONAMEs
of the same GNOME libraries. So why's it a problem in general?

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-chiark.mail.debian.devel@srcf.ucam.org