Well, I figure all the work I did on 1.9.7a will apply to 1.9.8a. Also, Jeff, they're almost promising the ABI will quit changing!
Mike. -- "I'm a dinosaur. Somebody's digging my bones." ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 21:29:57 -0800 From: Zeyd M. Ben-Halim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: announcing ncurses 1.9.8a I've uploaded version 1.9.8a of ncurses as ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/zm/zmbenhal/ncurses/ncurses-1.9.8a.tar.gz This essentially 1.9.8 + Tom's patches including my omission of TABSIZE. I had indicated to Eric and Tom that if I didn't hear from them by the end of last Sunday, I'd make 1.9.8 public. Unfortunately I put in my ftp directory and then had flakey net connections since during getting our office on the internet. I built 1.9.8a on Linux, AIX, and SunOS (with gcc) with no problems. The debian people have been bitching at the frequent changes in the shared library ABI and I understand their frustration. But I (we) never promised binary compatibility, just offering people the means of building shared libraries. People have to realize that Linux is NOT the only platform that ncurses is aimed at, nor am I the official ncurses keeper for Linux. I'm more than happy to take any input regarding the packaging of ncurses, but I can't cater to the whims of every Tom, Dick, and Harry. Distribution makers are free to re-package ncurses any way they see fit. The change to the ABI are forced by the nature of ncurses as a library that makes extensive use of macros, while trying to maintain compatibility with SVSR4 and XSI curses. 1.9.8a includes the major effort to conform and I have thus changed the ABI to 3.0, where I hope it will stay. I will try to restrain Eric from running amok through the public interface :-) I'll upgrading to ELF in the next week or so; that will allow me to get a better handle on the shared libraries under Linux. Enjoy, Zeyd