Feature Proposal: Rolling Updates (was Re: WHY I WANT TO STOP USING FEDORA!!!)

[Jeff Spaleta]

On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 8:04 AM, Mikkel L. Ellertson
<mikkel at infinity-ltd.com> wrote:
> Normally, you only need to recompile if there is a major version in
> the library. If it is a minor version change, it is supposed to be
> backward compatible.

This maybe expected for libraries which advertises a stable API, but
its not a hard and fast rule for all libraries..especially for
libraries which do not advertise themselves as stable.  Do we have an
accurate accounting of which upstream library projects consider their
API stable and follow the soname conventions? Or do we just assume
they are?

Take xulrunner for example, only a subset of the functions it exports
for applications to use are considered stable.  This is the reason why
xulrunner has a -devel and a -devel-unstable subpackage. Any
application which is making use of xulrunner function calls which are
identified as unstable...will need to be rebuilt with each and every
minor revision of xulrunner to ensure proper operation...regardless of
the soname changes on the library.  This is why every time there is a
xulrunner update, a flurry of additional application packages are
rebuilt and pushed as well.


-jef