Hi, On Thu, Jul 09, 2015 at 05:26:32PM +0200, Ansgar Burchardt wrote: > I'm wondering about the shared library packaging requirements in Policy > for the special case of scientific libraries that are not intended to be > used by applications, but are to be used by end-users directly,
What does "to be used by end users directly" mean? That they will use them to compile programs? That's not special. Because they are used for compiling, most shared libraries are Build-Depends of other packges, but that's not the only reason they exist. All libraries are available for developer end users. > and that do not have a stable ABI. That is an issue. It means that upstream will either need to change the soname a lot, which is probably not what they do, or that it shouldn't be a shared library (but a static library instead). > In particular does splitting out the shared library package provide > anything useful here? It means additional work for no benefit I can see > as parallel installation of multiple versions would require having > multiple -dev packages as well to be useful... The benefit of changing the soname and package name of a shared library is not that multiple versions can be used for development, but rather that programs compiled against an incompatible old version will still work when the new version is installed. This is because the old version is not uninstalled from the system (even if it may be removed from the archive after the dependency is upgraded there; the old application still links to the old library, which will remain installed on the user's machine at least until that application is upgraded or removed). This is true regardless of whether the application is provided by Debian or not. (But if it isn't, it is technically easy to remove the old library and break the application; the user must take care not to do that.) > Does anyone see any problems with this plan? Yes. The way we handle shared libraries for Debian packages works also for programs that aren't in Debian. Your proposal makes it harder for users to keep their programs running when the library is upgraded (they are forced to recompile). Also, to repeat: if the ABI is very unstable, the library should probably not be distributed as a shared library, but only as a static library. Then all those problems don't exist (but you're also missing some benefits, which is why most libraries should better be shared, with the static version only installed for special cases). Thanks, Bas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20150709163908.gd8...@fmf.nl
