GTk shared library numbering

[Alexander Jolk <jolk ap-pc513b physik uni-karlsruhe de>]

Hi,

For quite some time now, every new gtk+ release has been using the
same shared library version numbering, namely libgxx.so.1.0.0.  I
would like to ask what is the rationale behind this, if any.  I
recognize the fact that with continuing development on a CVS tree
simple version numbers are less appropriate than date stamps as they
are used now, but couldn't we have an incrementing library version
number at least with `official' releases?

I suppose the `1.0' was originally chosen in order to match the
projected GIMP version number when 1.0 is out, but since gtk+ is not
longer bundled with the GIMP, there's no harm done in departing from
that, is there?

With the upcoming integration into mainstream distributions of
different projects that use gtk+ (such as gnome), there will be an
increasing number of problem reports that reduce to `I installed
program foo from that server and it fails.---Look, you need at least
version 971212 of gtk+ for that particular binary to work.'  Shared
library versioning is a good way to circumvent this kind of
collisions.

Just my thoughts,
	Alex

-- 
Alexander Jolk * jolk@ap-pc513b.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de * +49-721-608-3572