Multilib Middle-Ground

[Patrice Dumas]

On Thu, May 01, 2008 at 07:52:13AM -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
> Paul Howarth wrote:
>> > I think we are all actually in violent agreement here, it's just that 
>> some proprietary vendors seem to go out of their way to defeat the 
>> dependency mechanisms that would help tools like yum install their 
>> software.
>
> Have you looked at what packages  have to include to install on more than 
> one linux distro/version?  And fedora is the worst of the bunch in terms of 
> not being compatible with last week's version of itself.  Give the 3rd 
> party packagers a target before you complain about them missing it.

It is not fedora as such. The change in ABI (binary interfaces) or API 
comes from upstream. And since fedora follows upstream, ABI break when there
is an upstream release breaking ABI. Some projects take care of ABI stability 
(glibc, gnome, netcdf) other don't (openssl, libdap). Also it may happen that 
ABI  breaks when compiler change and also kernel compatibilities change. 
And fedora also follow upstream in that. There could be policies to avoid 
breaking ABI within a fedora release, but so far there is no consensus on 
that subject and it is left to the packager.

RHEL tries to keep ABI stable during the whole distro lifetime.

--
Pat