[Fedora-packaging] perl module MODULE_COMPAT

[Michael Schwendt]

On Sun, 03 Apr 2005 02:04:44 -1000, Warren Togami wrote:

> MODULE_COMPAT was designed to allow for distinctions of more than just 
> the version (which is all python-abi does).  This is necessary for perl 
> and not python because it is possible to rebuild perl in different ways 
> that breaks ABI compat, while python is almost entirely noarch.  This 
> happened with the perl package IIRC in the RH8-RH9-RHEL3 timeframe.
> 
> Since then however perl has not broken ABI (?), so it seems that we have 
> this seemingly overcomplicated construct.  But if we do break ABI again 
> like in FC5 because we recompile the same version of FC4 perl with some 
> new flag, MODULE_COMPAT can enforce exact deps and prevent incompatible 
> FC4 packages from being installed on FC5.
> 
> Chip put a lot of thought into designing this.

I've thought the perl(:WITH_FOO) virtual provides define the Perl ABI
requirements and not perl(:MODULE_COMPAT_...).