libcdio/libcddb (was: Re: Fedora Extras 4 Package Build Report)

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Thu, 2005-07-28 at 14:45 +0200, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Jul 2005 14:13:20 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> 
> > Well, what actually has happened raises much more general questions.
> > 
> > What has happened: A major update of a package in FE has broken
> > compatibility (SONAME change).
> > 
> > As far as Livna is concerned, rebuilding all affected packages at livna
> > will close this issue locally for Livna, but ... FE has broken its API
> > and will have broken other packages elsewhere.
> 
> It broke the ABI, that's worse.
> 
> > The question now is:
> 
> Are we permitted to break ABI/API in updates or only for the next
> release of the distribution?

IMO, in general no. 

FE should adopt a similar policy as FC seems to apply.

> How do we handle ABI/API breakage generally?
IMO, a case-by-case based decisions would be appropriate.

* For exotic/rarely used packages, we probably do not have to care much
(Who decides and how?).
* For packages with a small set of applications using it (such as
libcdio/libcddb), providing compatibility run-time packages probably
will suffice.
* For widely used packages, packages should be designed for parallel
installation.
* For vital and very widely used packages (I am not aware of any in FE),
skipping updates probably would be best.

> > It's basically the same problem FC
> > circumvents by occasionally not adopting major updates (Consider Gnome,
> > KDE, GCC, Libc) or by providing compatibility packages.
> > 
> > IMO, the only fair and correct policy would be FE to providing
> > compatibility packages.
> 
> The easiest solution, but only for compatibility DSOs, not a
> separate -devel package.
I guess, this would suffice in the libcdio, libcddb case.

Ralf