Bug#528453: debian policy: please discourage overly strict run-time version checks
On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 06:55:16AM -0500, Jonathan Nieder wrote:
> reassign 528453 debian-policy 3.9.1.0
> severity 528453 wishlist
> retitle 528453 debian policy: please discourage overly strict run-time version checks
> tags 528453 - wontfix
> quit
>
> Hi,
>
> Jörg Sommer wrote:
> > Jonathan Nieder hat am Fri 01. Jan, 10:42 (+0000) geschrieben:
> >> Jörg Sommer wrote:
>
> >>> This report didn't really describe a bug. It's more a (loosely) feature
> >>> of Jed to check if the version used at runtime is at least as recent as
> >>> the version used while building. As said before, this warning comes up
> >>> everytime jed migrates faster to testing than libslang and vanishes when
> >>> libslang migrated.
> >>>
> >>> We don't want to add a dependency to jed on the libslang version used at
> >>> buildtime, because this would drive the dynamic dependency system of
> >>> Debian useless—Debian's symbol bases dependency system is much more
> >>> accurate than jed's loosely feature.
> >>
> >> Why not suppress the warning?
> >
> > Because upstream decided the warning should be there and we do not want
> > to add a new patch for this.
>
> Debian policy does not explain that packages should not do this, but I
> think that's a bug in policy.
>
> This reminds me of a few bugs I've seen before: one in subversion (an
> overly strict run-time check for APR version) and one in various apps
> that use the tcl runtime (likewise). Reassigning. (Thoughts welcome,
> as always.)
Another similar warning: the dynamic loader sometime output a warning
"symbol xxx size has changed, consider relinking"
when a library is updated to a new minor version.
(It was libreadline in etch IIRC).
While I agree that such warnings cause problems, this is an upstream issue
and Debian policy is not very efficient at adressing upstream issues, because
upstream are not bound by Debian policy.
Cheers,
--
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>
Imagine a large red swirl here.
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