From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sat May 10 13:08:36 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2C73A1065671 for ; Sat, 10 May 2008 13:08:36 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwatson@FreeBSD.org) Received: from cyrus.watson.org (cyrus.watson.org [209.31.154.42]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 019AB8FC19 for ; Sat, 10 May 2008 13:08:35 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwatson@FreeBSD.org) Received: from fledge.watson.org (fledge.watson.org [209.31.154.41]) by cyrus.watson.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4BC0046B45; Sat, 10 May 2008 08:50:48 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 13:50:48 +0100 (BST) From: Robert Watson X-X-Sender: robert@fledge.watson.org To: Julian Elischer In-Reply-To: <481F6990.9010007@elischer.org> Message-ID: <20080510134833.J63808@fledge.watson.org> References: <4dcb5abd0805050540m292b319aw52aa2cb8ba018e12@mail.gmail.com> <481F0DB3.9070505@FreeBSD.org> <481F48EE.3050806@elischer.org> <481F4EED.2030300@FreeBSD.org> <4dcb5abd0805051132o77d68e36u3f0ad38630a02afd@mail.gmail.com> <481F6990.9010007@elischer.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, Carl Shapiro Subject: Re: binary compatibility query X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 13:08:36 -0000 On Mon, 5 May 2008, Julian Elischer wrote: > basically if you rely only on the standard posix interfaces and don't do > anything exotic then you will "probably" be safe. > > the really safe way of course it to make a 6.0 chroot on your machine and > compile your app there. For "raw" UNIX applications, this rule of thumb works well, but not for applications that depend on third-party libraries, languages, or daemons. For example, Java binaries built against 6.0 using packages shipped with 6.0 can't run on 6.1 due to incompatible changes in third-party libraries it depends on. While we try to be pretty careful with the base system, we have no control over third party applications, and as far as I know, we perform no testing (nor even have policies) for addressing that sort of incompatibility. The safety of depending on those third-party libraries pretty much corresponds to the carefulness of the thirdy-party library authors and their attention to those same sorts of details. Robert N M Watson Computer Laboratory University of Cambridge