[Fedora-packaging] review cgilib issues

[Michael Schwendt]

On Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:17:41 -0600, Jason wrote:

> >>>>> "MS" == Michael Schwendt writes:
> 
> MS> Current guidelines disallow static libs,
> 
> That is not true.  They merely discourage it.  "Package doesn't build
> as a dynamic library" is certainly sufficient justification.

The current wording,

| Static libraries should only be included in exceptional circumstances.

is strong enough to make some packagers add patches for creating
a shared lib.

> MS> reviewers point that out, packagers make up a soname and version,
> MS> and reviewers accept it.
> 
> If they're going to make up a soname, they should at least start at
> 0.  However, I don't see how the issue of inventing a soname is
> relevant here.

It's relevant in that it doesn't matter how we [Fedora Package Collection]
differ from upstream and other distributions. Sometimes we differ in
SONAME, e.g. %{version} as part of the SONAME, sometimes we only differ in
the major library version. Preferably we don't differ in such fundamental
details.

It becomes worse if upstream finally decides to [re]start at .0 after
packagers have had a higher version already.

Starting at .0 makes sense, and usually that is done, but for interfaces
which are not stable, the package maintainer either needs to bump the
version accordingly or still rebuild all dependencies for lib updates
and hidden ABI/API breakage.

> MS> Instead, they ought to reject such packages and request
> MS> involvement of upstream developers in deciding on a soname and
> MS> library versioning scheme.
> 
> Certainly we shouldn't be going to steps to turn static libraries into
> dynamic ones without at least trying to talk to upstream about the
> issue.  We shouldn't be making _any_ significant alterations to any
> packaged software without trying to talk to upstream.

Library Makefiles are being changed, however, and although reviewers
should notice it while examining the Patch files, nobody re-reviews
changes applied in cvs. There are more questionable alterations to
upstream installation defaults (not just in the Fedora pkg collection,
e.g. add pkg-config templates), but they are beyond the scope of this
reply.

In general, though, we don't want to create -devel packages to be used by
software developers running Fedora, that lead to software releases which
are incompatible with non-Fedora installations.