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Date:      Sun, 24 Feb 2002 18:07:25 -0500 (EST)
From:      Mikhail Teterin <mi@aldan.algebra.com>
To:        wollman@lcs.mit.edu, knu@iDaemons.org
Cc:        nectar@FreeBSD.org, cvs-committers@FreeBSD.org, cvs-all@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: cvs commit: ports/graphics/libwmf Makefile pkg-plist
Message-ID:  <200202242307.g1ON7SX04508@aldan.algebra.com>
In-Reply-To: <200202211730.g1LHUqQ25415@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu>

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On 21 Feb, Garrett Wollman wrote:
> <<On Thu, 21 Feb 2002 11:16:40 -0600, "Jacques A. Vidrine" <nectar@FreeBSD.org> said:
> 
>> I'm not sure that applies to  the packages upon which libwmf depends.
>> But  even if  it  did, it  is  still foolish  to  ignore the  version
>> numbers.  One  doesn't know  whether  the  major version  was  bumped
>> gratuitously or not.

As stated  before, this is done  to make it easier  (possible!) to build
the  port against  an earlier  (or, perhaps,  later) version  of another
port.

> Well, remember also that the library version number indicates *binary*
> compatibility;  what  the ports,  in  general,  are interested  in  is
> *source*  compatibility,  and  the  library version  number  does  not
> necessarily  help at  all  there.

Exactly  my point  all along.  A library  may not  be used  as a  binary
replacement of its  earlier version, but it will usually  work just fine
as a source  replacement -- if the library using  software is recompiled
using the new versions of the  headers, essentially. The cases of source
incompatibility are  MUCH more rare than  those of the binary.  (And the
later are don't  happen as often as the major  version bumps, but that's
an unrelated  topic.) And yes,  a new release  of a library  may finally
break the depending port, but this will not happen as nearly as often as
the "chase the major number of the -lfoo" commits.

The  only counter-arguments so far are, that  my changes  may break  the
package collection (they  may not, since Bento uses  the latest versions
of the packages  anyway) and/or they break one of  the possible readings
of  the  Porter's Handbook  (those  "chasing"  commits don't  raise  the
PORTREVISION, typicly, either).

Someone also mentioned,  they may break the usage of  portupgrade, but I
don't  see  how,  and  even  they  can,  I  suspect,  this  would  be  a
portupgrade's  problem.  After  all,  ports are  primary.  Packages  are
secondary... Portupgrade is not even in  the base system (although it is
a known and important port).

> (Binary compatibility for packages being  taken care of by the package
> versioning, which is oblivious to the shared libraries inside.)

That's my understanding too.

	-mi



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