On Thu, 2004-12-09 at 09:07 +0100, Scott James Remnant wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-12-08 at 14:59 -0800, Bruce Perens wrote:
>
> > The main technical effect that I see would be that the names of some
> > dynamic libraries would change. And compatibility with the old names
> > could be maintained indefinitely if necessary.
> >
> ?!??!?!?!?!?!?!"PO!(*"!$*_(!$*"($*!("*$_*!"*$("
>
> That is all.
Well, that's certainly constructive.
Can someone provide an example of where the name of a dynamic
library itself (i.e., the one in the file system, after the
package is unpacked) would change? I'd be surprised if this was
a big issue. The LSB/FHS should take care of file system level
incompatibilities already (though Debian may put some things in
/lib that RPM-based distros put in /usr/lib due to more strict policy
about such things), so I'd think the main issue wouldn't so much be
about the names of the dynamic libraries themselves, but the names of
the packages they come in (acl vs. libacl1, as per my last message).
The bottom line is that the differences between the distributions
are much smaller than you might think. Remember, we all share the
same upstream sources for our software. And, after an initial
rough comparison of Conectiva, Mandrakesoft, Turbolinux, and
Debian sarge, we're surprisingly close to not only using the same
upstream sources, but also the same versions of those upstream
sources too. So, increasing compatibility is mostly about using
the same versions of stuff, and making sure we have the glue
in place to deal with any differences in file system layout
and package namespace in the binary packages built from them.
I expect configuration issues to be more significant than namespace
issues such as this (mostly /etc stuff).
--
Ian Murdock
317-578-8882 (office)
http://www.progeny.com/
http://ianmurdock.com/
"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in
the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was
vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may
act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible." -T.E. Lawrence
