Fwd: Compat Libraries (was Re: libcurl.so.2) [mpeters at mac.com]

[Sean Middleditch]

On Wed, 2004-12-08 at 01:02 +0000, Michael A. Peters wrote:
> email message attachment
> On Wed, 2004-12-08 at 01:02 +0000, Michael A. Peters wrote:
> > Cross posted (from fedora users to fedora-devel ... maybe we need a  
> > fedora-philosophy list ? ;)
> > 
> > On 12/07/2004 12:34:23 PM, Aleksandar Milivojevic wrote:
> > > Paul Howarth wrote:
> > >> http://www.city-fan.org/ftp/contrib/sysutils/Mirroring/compat-libcurl-7.11.2-2.i386.rpm
> > > 
> > > I'd kind of expect this RPM to be part of FC3 distro, but it wasn't.
> > 
> > I agree.
> > I've had to package a couple compat libraries myself (libgal2 and  
> > libgtkhtml3) as software I needed refused to compile against the fc3  
> > (gnome 2.8) versions, but did fine against the fc2 (gnome 2.6)  
> > versions.
> > 
> > I'm not sure they should be installed by default on a fc3 system -  
> > compat-libstdc++ does because fc3 ships with software that wants it (I  
> > think OO.o) - but what would be *nice* is if a fedora-compat repository  
> > were somewhat maintained that included binary compat shared libraries  
> > for cases such as these, where a third party package wants an older  
> > version of a shared library.

This whole compat-foo thing Red Hat/Fedora does is so incredibly goofy.
It's a great example of the poor (non-existent, perhaps) packaging
standards employed in those distros.

Let's look at an example.  Use has libfoo installed in FCX.  FCY comes
along with a new major version of libfoo, and a compat-libfoo.  Several
more revisions of FC late, libfoo is one or two more versions along, and
compat-libfoo is either no longer in the distro, or doesn't have the
version of foo from FCX.  The user upgrades, perhaps does a fresh
reinstall - either way, it doesn't matter, because the user will find
that apps installed in FCX (quite possibly third party apps) no longer
work.

And what about the maintenance cost of the compat packages?  Keeping a
compat-foo package that has several major revisions in it cannot be
something the maintainers enjoy doing.

If the packages had just used a more intelligent naming scheme, this
problem wouldn't exist, ever.  Name the packages libfoo1, libfoo2, etc.
Get rid of the compat-foo stuff.  If you upgrade, libfoo1 stays around,
libfoo2 is installed, no problems.  Ten years down the road (assuming
the glibc/gcc gods don't decide to screw users over again and break tons
of ABI) you can still install your apps that relies on libfoo1.  You may
not have that package, but you can grab it online and install it, and it
just works.  No worries that you need an old version of compat-foo that
need manual rpm -i invocation to install alongside the current compat-
foo, no worries about having a 100MB compat-foo, etc.

It gets better.  Most of the Fedora Core 1 Extras installed on FC2, and
many install on FC3.  Most of the FC2 Extra install on FC3.  Most of the
conflicts I do run into are *not* problems with the underlying software
but just poor packaging.  Switching to a libfoo<version> scheme, and you
could even get rid of the multi-distro Extra.  Why have your servers
store 3 copies of Extras when you can just have one?

That also has better implications for third party packages, which quite
a few users use.  Even with the bazillion CDs distro ship these days (it
really does seem like the Linux distribution version of a penis
comparison sometimes, doesn't it?) users often need or want third party
packages.  Even for a lot of software Fedora ships I still use third
party versions because it's goofy to have to upgrade an entire OS (and
wait for said upgrade to be released, even if it is no more than 6
months) to get an updated package with bugs fixed.

Fedora released are packaged like appliances.  They're only intended to
work with themself, and external packages only if they customize
themself to the specific Fedora release.  It doesn't have to be that
way.  The distribution can be a *platform*.  Commercial *and* Open
Source ISVs, and the users themselves, benefit from having a platform.

It's not a big task.  Just fixing the small, simple things like the curl
package is really all that's needed in most cases.  The fact that, as I
said, Fedora Core 1 Extras *mostly* install fine on FC3 proves that.