On
02/16/2015 05:10 PM, Martyn Foster wrote:
On 16 February 2015 at 15:12, Kevin Kofler
<kevin.kofler@chello.at
<mailto:kevin.kofler@chello.at>> wrote:
Christopher Meng wrote:
> Maintaining several version of the same library is not
easy as you think,
> basically once a developer wants to install version X
while then another
> people want to deploy things based on version Y, how to
crack this nut?
> You can't just care about runtime.
Then you need to patch one or the other package to work with
the same
version. Only if that is not possible, a compatibility
library can be
considered. But we should always first try to make
everything work
with the
same version (if possible, the newer one).
The requirement to work with multiple versions of a package come
up in
the scientific/HPC community very frequently. Its not always
about API
compatibility, sometimes exact numerical reproduction is
required which
isn't preserved even between minor versions (i.e. an OS update).
I don't buy this argument wrt. Fedora.
Fedora is a rapid moving, forward looking distro, in which such
regressions should be fixed and not be worked around by
compat-libs.
Ralf
I guess the main point is missed completely. The main proposal is
not mainly about compatibility. It's about providing latest
development libraries in stable releases for *user* consumption (not
for distro one). Also, the compatibility package is solely provided
for user consumption; *no* Fedora package should be built against it
(unless it happens already).
There are some arguments against providing such thing in Fedora, but
if someone wants to install two versions of the same library (e.g.
installing the latest version for development while having default
version for Fedora packages); he'll do it anyway. So, if such
packages are not provided by Fedora, he will install from source.
So, the user will install multiple versions anyway. Do you want to
support him, or not?
Regards,
Hedayat