On Sat, Sep 29, 2007 at 03:24:43AM +1000, skaller wrote: > I must be missing something .. isn't this just a case of > building an *extra* library?
The problem in more detail is like this. Suppose I ship OCaml with the extra libcamlrun_shared.so (for example). Fedora and RHEL users start building their proprietary applications linked to -lcamlrun_shared. So far no problem. Later INRIA apply a fix, but unfortunately their fix is different -- eg. it might be something as simple as a name change (libcamlrun_pic.so), or they might decide to do the whole thing in a completely different way. Now I have the problem that I've got to keep on supporting the -lcamlrun_shared way as well as the real fix from INRIA, and that's particularly a problem for RHEL where we guarantee ABI (yes, _binary_) stability for 7 years, but also a problem to a lesser extent in Fedora. In the case of this library it's a relatively minor problem, but these things build up over time and the stated aim for Fedora is to follow & benefit upstream packages. Fedora is just packaging and tries to avoid carrying around any legacy which isn't about packaging. (So for example it's OK for Fedora to add or fix 'make install' locations for packages that don't follow Linux standards base, because that's a "packaging thing", but we don't want to start carrying around fixes for general problems, unless those fixes are either in upstream or we are pretty certain they are going to be in upstream). Rich. -- Richard Jones Red Hat -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
