Re: Would an ABI change of apt for DDTP support still be accepted?

[Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org>]

On Mon, Oct 02, 2006 at 12:54:13AM +0200, Michael Vogt wrote:
> > BTW, I count 18 binary packages that would need a rebuild for this.  This is
> > a decent-sized library transition in its own right.

> We may have to recompile the rdepends of libapt anyway because of
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=390189 
> (recent g++ upload 4.1.1ds1-14 has a g++ regression)

<sigh>

This version of g++-4.1 hasn't been accepted into etch yet, and there's been
no request from Matthias that we do so.  Letting it into etch as a freeze
exception suggests that we might have *other* packages fail to build as a
result of similar ABI regressions in other libraries.  That doesn't sound
like a good idea to me unless someone is offering to do a full
regression-test of testing using g++ 4.1.1-15.

> Upstream gcc bugreport:
> http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=29289

>From this report, there's nothing to suggest the reverse-deps need to be
rebuilt, only that the lib needs to be rebuilt so that the reverse-deps
don't FTBFS.  Is there something I'm missing?

> Matthias is still waiting for a comment from upstream on this. It
> maybe enough to recompile apt with the current g++, but it maybe that
> the only save option is to change the soname and recompile a rdepends.

If there really is reason to believe this requires an soname change, I think
we should instead consider backing this patch out of g++-4.1 in unstable
until after the etch release, as compiler-induced ABI changes are clearly
*not* supposed to be happening during a toolchain freeze.

> > > There's no API changes from APT side so just binary NMUs are enough
> > > AFAIK.

> > So what is this ABI change that doesn't involve API changes?

> There is a API change involved. But it is backwards compatible so a
> recompile will be good enough. To make use of the translated
> descriptions the applications needs to be changed though. Patches are
> available for aptitude, python-apt, synaptic, libapt-front (0.3). 

> I hope this helps and I'm sorry for the bad timing with this request :/

FWIW, this didn't answer the question "what is the ABI change?" :)

Cheers,
-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon@debian.org                                   http://www.debian.org/