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

[Michael Schwendt]

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?

How do we handle ABI/API breakage generally?

> Is FE supposed to provide a fixed API, and therefore to provide
> compatibility packages in general?

A compatibility package like the aforementioned libcddb0-1.0.2 would
fix the ABI breakage, but create API breakage in case you also want
a compatibility -devel package (to make the old and new libcddb
co-exist, you would need to relocate the files of either one).

> 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.