Here's something I didn't expect from the new ABI gate. Which, before
I go further, I think will be a great idea nearly all of the time. I
think avoiding unintentional ABI breaks in stable releases is a worthy
goal.
But ... I maintain a package called gap. It provides what amounts to
a scripting language for doing certain types of math. It comes with a
bunch of addon packages that provide specific mathematical
capabilities. Most of them are written solely in the scripting
language, but a few have to interface with external libraries. When
that is required, these packages build a small internal-only shared
object to act as the glue between the external library and the
scripting language.
I've got a pending update for one of these packages that fixes some
bugs. It has been caught by the ABI gate:
https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2018-e45a7bb9a7
There is no danger in pushing this to stable, since the only consumer
of the changed ABI is inside the same package. Now what do I do? Are
ABI changes completely disallowed in all circumstances? Is there a
button somewhere that says, "I am aware of the danger of pushing this
to stable and I have verified that nothing will break in this case"?
Thanks,
--
Jerry James
http://www.jamezone.org/