Patrice Dumas (pertusus@free.fr) said:
If something is added between 2.8 and 2.10 while ABI is kept compatible and the soname isn't changed, and that new thing is needed, then the soname is not enough.
Only in the case when you're running something built against, say Fedora 8, on Fedora < 8. (Or Fedora 8 from some number of months ago, I suppose, if people are gratuitously upgrading libraries.)
Bill