Sven Neumann <sven@xxxxxxxx> writes:
> While GIMP is approaching the 2.0 release, the libgimp* APIs are
> stabilizing and it's about time to update plug-ins so they will work
> with GIMP-2.0
as gimp packager in mandrake linux distribution, there's one thing
that has always annoy me with the way gimp is released upstream.
a library soname should be <libname>.so.<major>
the major number should be increased when abi or api is broken/altered
(eg: libpng-1.0.x was libpng.so.2 whereas libpng-1.2.4 is libpng.so.3).
ie the library major is not related to the library version number.
major is not increased on version bump but on api and/or abi change
(eg: libgal keep increasing its major because of this and gal-0.24
provide libgal.so.23)
this enable to have different versions of the same libray installed at
the same moment because different programs need different libraries
version (eg: libgk+-1.2 and libgtk+2.0)
as gimp is concerned:
- in the 1.0.x days, its library major was 1.
- then in the 1.1.x days, the soname switched from libgimp.so.1 to
libgimp-1.1.so.25
aka gimp stoped to follow std major library numbering
- in the 1.2.x, it's now libgimp-1.2.so.0
- in the 1.3.x, gimp-1.3.23 library soname is libgimp-1.3.so.23
that is gimp does not anymore follow std major library numbering:
- its library major is set to its minor version.
- the soname contains the first part of the version number
i would like next releases of gimp to follow std library major
numbering:
- switch back to libgimp.so.23
- increase library major only on API or ABI change (thus libgimpui
major may differ from libgimp ...)
- do not ever reset major to 0 when gimp-2.0.x is released
this would enable:
- saner packaging of gimp
- distro packagers would know when they've to rebuild packages that
depends of gimp because major has been bumper thus meaning that:
o either packages should be linked against latest lib because of new
abi
o or package should be patched for new api
thanks :-)
