Ralf Corsepius <rc040203@freenet.de> wrote on Mon, 16 Feb 2015 17:17:32 +0100:
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