Re: Versioned Symbols

[Wichert Akkerman <wichert@wiggy.net>]

Previously Stephen Frost wrote:
>   We need to make a decision on how to properly handle multiple library
>   versions ending up linked into the same process.

I think what we should do is simple: 'do not do that'.

>   - Implement versioned symbols
>     - May cause binary compatibility issues
>     - Doesn't follow LSB (I believe..)
>     - Could be difficult to do correctly

Very hard to implement and will result in non-trivial patches that
upstream sources will probably never merge.

>   - Conflict between library versions
>     - Wouldn't allow valid setups where the versions aren't linked into
>       the same process
>     - Lots of packages would end up uninstallable for certain library
>       upgrades

Those two reasons make it obvious we should not do that I think.

>   At the moment I tend to think versioning the symbols is the 'right'
>   thing to do and we should push to get upstream, other distros and LSB
>   to do that too.  I don't think leaving things the way they are is
>   acceptable.

I challenge you to implement it for a few versions of a few different
non-trivial libraries.

I think a different solution: check for this problem when build a
package and abort if you hit it. That is trivial to implement as
a linda check or standalone tool you can call from debian/rules. In
fact I think dpkg-scanlibs already does that.

Wichert.

-- 
Wichert Akkerman <wichert@wiggy.net>           http://www.wiggy.net/
A random hacker