Bug#868558: nmu: multiple r-* packages

[Emilio Pozuelo Monfort <pochu@debian.org>]

On 01/09/17 13:25, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
> 
> Emilio,
> 
> Thanks for your follow-up.  I will try to get to each point.
> 
> On 1 September 2017 at 11:42, Emilio Pozuelo Monfort wrote:
> | What Niels meant is whether having an old, non-rebuilt R module with the new
> | r-base works, 
> 
> Yes, in general, and here in this case.

Then I don't understand why these binNMUs are needed.

>From #861333 OP:

"With current R, R packages built for Debian before the upload of R
3.3.3.20170413-1
on 14 April that use .C or .Fortran do no work properly, because the functions
calling .C or .Fortran do not find the compiled objects."

That tells me that if you upgrade R but don't upgrade some modules, those will
(partially) break. Hence we need either an ABI bump, or versioned breaks against
the affected modules in r-base.

Cheers,
Emilio