On Tue, 2006-11-21 at 11:31 -0600, Rex Dieter wrote: > Ralf Corsepius wrote: > > On Tue, 2006-11-21 at 09:29 -0600, Rex Dieter wrote: > > >> I consider ABI compatibility as just one part > >> of what defines a stable distro, but, imo, there are certainly cases > >> where breaking ABI is justified (for essential features, bug fixes, and > >> yes, stability sometimes). > > > > Please ask RH how they have been handling Core, so far. > > > > I don't know how many times I've been told: "No API-changes, no ABI > > upgrade, no feature upgrades, often not even bugfixes (aka > > FIXEDRAWHIDE)"! > > When it comes to breaking API/ABI, I'd say it's primarily the package > maintainers' call to make. I am inclined to agree in those cases, where a package is of limited importance, has a very limited number of dependencies and/or a small userbase, but I can't avoid to disagree in general. But what would you think of a kernel, GCC, Glibc, Gtk/Gtk or Qt/KDE maintainer, who breaks things midst of a distro's life time? Have a look at FE: A classic breakdown is maintainers not paying attention to SONAMEs/ABIs/APIs and them inadvertently breaking something by not so. Most maintainers, after having gone through a learning curse, will try to circumvent such issues, either by providing compat-packages, by trying to inform their users in advance, or ... to resort to refraining from their plans. Ralf -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
