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Date:      Thu, 1 Oct 1998 10:50:44 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Alex <garbanzo@hooked.net>
To:        "Kaleb S. KEITHLEY" <kaleb@ics.com>
Cc:        devel@XFree86.org, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: ELF shared library "revision" numbers
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSI.3.95.981001104117.6970C-100000@fish.hooked.net>
In-Reply-To: <36139828.2F3833FD@ics.com>

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On Thu, 1 Oct 1998, Kaleb S. KEITHLEY wrote:
> > It doesn't follow your "Unless the ABI changes in an incompatible way,
> > you don't change the SONAME" statement above for your definition of
> > "incompatible".  
> 
> That's the ELF definition of incompatible, not mine.
> 
> > The definition of "incompatible" that FreeBSD has chosen
> > includes adding new functions while keeping all the previous interfaces
> > unchanged.
> 
> Ugh. That's bad. That's going to force people to keep old libraries
> around for old programs, and /usr/lib is going to suffer from bloat.
> Either that or it's going to force people to go manually dink their
> /usr/lib to create symlinks if they want to get rid of old libraries.
> (Yeah, yeah, disk is cheap.)

It's _good_.  It would force people to link statically if they're horribly
desperate, or perhaps just relink.  Yes, it's true Linux added new
functions to its libc5 without bumping the major number.  Let me tell you,
when you've got a populace that's so full of clueless idiots, doing
something like that is a bad idea.  Ever try and run programs linked with
libc.so.5.44 on a libc.so.5.12 system?  It's not fun, but something like
that _should_ work.  When you introduce binary or source incompatablity,
it's time to change the major number.

> Bumping the SONAME/version when you add APIs doesn't buy you anything.

It buys you sanity.  Unless you want to explain why a libc.so.3 from the
12th won't work with programs linked with a libc.so.3 from the 13th.

- alex

You better believe that marijuana can cause castration.  Just suppose your
girlfriend gets the munchies!


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