C++ compatibility package dropped

[Mike Hearn]

On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 19:19:32 -0400, Jakub Jelinek wrote:
> There is no compat-libstdc++ package in FC4, only compat-libstdc++-296 and
> compat-libstdc++-33. 

Yes, sorry, I was referring to the compat-libstdc++-33 package.

> Both are included in the Legacy Software Support group (which is rather small).
> Is it really that hard to check that group in if you want to use legacy
> software?  Not everybody uses legacy software, so forcing it for everyone
> in the base group is a bad idea IMHO.

Well, nobody knows whether they need it until they choose some
random software and find that it's considered "legacy". In particular new
software is often compiled against older DSO versions so the binaries work
on more distributions, so this distinction is quite subtle.

I don't think installing it by default really costs anything. It's, what,
3mb? If it's not installed by default then many users who just choose
the Personal/Workstation install won't get it. Then they post tech support
requests to my forums asking why they get this strange error they don't
understand. This is the GNOME philosophy of "Just Works" defaults again -
nobody suffers if the package is installed but not used, but people do
suffer is the package is not installed and used.

As to whether RPM should take care of this or not, well, there are many
programs that are not in any repository. Maybe in an ideal world where
every Linux user used Fedora and so every program was in some repository,
then maybe ... but that isn't the current world so we can't assume people
use RPM for everything.

thanks -mike