To Require or not to Require?

[Michael Schwendt]

On Thu, 11 Aug 2011 14:10:44 +0100, PH (Paul) wrote:

> >> Library SONAME requirement for _external_ builds ought to stay
> >> implicit/automatic, but _libraries and subpackages_ are a different
> >> problem space. A library update may add stuff without changing its SONAME
> >> and while staying compatible with existing executables in external packages.
> >> But executables shipped with the library package (in subpackages) may
> >> strictly need the very latest library.
> >
> > There is no difference between "external" packages and subpackages: they
> > both will need the new symbol some day.
> 
> Indeed, which is why we have version-specific library dependencies on 
> libssh2 in curl: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=642796

This is just
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Explicit_Requires
where a specific library version is needed actually and differs from
what has been released before. It is neither the norm nor mandatory.