Hello, Now that Lenny is finally released, I want to give everyone build-depending on Boost a heads-up on what's coming. This message is being sent to all package addresses that build-depend on the 1.34.1 release of Boost, i.e. libboost-dev, libboost-regex-dev, etc.
In a nutshell: libboost-dev is deprecated and will be removed in the coming weeks. In its place please build-depend on libboost1.38-dev (and siblings), which will be uploaded very shortly. The Details ----------- The same -dev package names have been used for Boost versions 1.21 through 1.34.1. Each time a new Boost upstream was released, all the build-depending packages needed to be recompiled. Often, several packages needed source tweaks due to Boost API changes. Boost is not able to maintain a stable API across each and every Boost library [1]. Since Boost is used in several widely-used libraries and frameworks (e.g. some of kde), the resulting transition entangled a large number of packages and became too painful. As a result, starting with Boost 1.35: each Boost release is packaged in its own set of -dev packages, e.g. libboost1.37-dev, libboost-regex1.37-dev. This allows each of the build-depending package to transition at their own schedule. Hopefully, the transition is as easy as changing the Build-Depends line and recompiling. Although the parallel -dev packages serve to reduce the pain caused by each new Boost version, an explosion of boost versions is also difficult to manage. The Debian boost maintainers would like to keep a maximum of two boost versions at any one time. This desire is tempered by the fact that in the past year, Boost moved to quarterly releases. Such a pace requires that everyone update their boost build-depends line at least twice a year. I hope this is viewed as a reasonable compromise. Your thoughts on the matter are appreciated. Note that Boost 1.38 was just released. It is not yet uploaded but I hope to do so in the next day or two. That means you won't see it for some time, as it must pass through the NEW queue. In the meanwhile, you can use the existing Boost 1.37 packages to investigate what the transition means for your code. Thanks, -Steve (for the Debian Boost maintainer team) [1] This has been debated widely on the Boost lists and elsewhere. See, e.g. http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2008/03/135212.php for practical experience in API changes. There was a recent thread -- see http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2009/01/147260.php -- about the monolithic nature of Boost. Neither has been resolved, so we feel that the current practice is the best compromise between keeping Boost current in Debian without too many entangling transitions.
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