Re: Some bugs in Gnome 0.99.0

[sopwith redhat com (Elliot Lee)]

On Wed, 23 Dec 1998 11:21:43 +0000, Gary V. Vaughan
<gvaughan@oranda.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>It is correct for library versions to be different from package
>versions.  After all the two things are entirely different.  The package
>version is used by the developers to track the chronology of the
>releases, and perhaps whether major or minor changes have happened in
>*the functionality*.  The library version is used by the dynamic linker
>(i.e. by the OS) to track *binary compatibility* between releases of an
>individual shared library.  With libtool generated libraries, for
>example, the version numbers are used to tell the linker, at run time,
>whether it can safely load a newer library version in preference to the
>library the application was compiled with (presumably the old interface
>must have been maintained, some bugs have been fixed, and maybe some new
>features which don't break the previous API are present).
>
>It is plain wrong to try to force the package version number into the
>library version number (despite what raster might tell you =)O|).

Maybe if libtool weren't so horribly broken, we could use sonames as they
were intended to be used.

Using arbitrary version numbers for libraries only confuses the user when
they're trying to satisfy dependencies for a package. Instead of hacking
around libtool deficiencies, someone should fix libtool to allow using
complex sonames (e.g. libgnome.so.0.99) on systems that allow them, and doing
workarounds on systems that don't.

-- Elliot
"In film you will find four basic story lines. Man versus man, man
 versus nature, nature versus nature, and dog versus vampire."
    - Steven Spielberg