Proposal to (formally/easily) allowing multiple versions of the same library installable

[Hedayat Vatankhah]

/*Ralf Corsepius <rc040203 at freenet.de>*/ wrote on Mon, 16 Feb 2015 
17:17:32 +0100:
> On 02/16/2015 05:10 PM, Martyn Foster wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 16 February 2015 at 15:12, Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler at chello.at
>> <mailto:kevin.kofler at chello.at>> wrote:
>>
>>     Christopher Meng wrote:
>>     > Maintaining several version of the same library is not easy as 
>> you think,
>>     > basically once a developer wants to install version X while 
>> then another
>>     > people want to deploy things based on version Y, how to crack 
>> this nut?
>>     > You can't just care about runtime.
>>
>>     Then you need to patch one or the other package to work with the 
>> same
>>     version. Only if that is not possible, a compatibility library 
>> can be
>>     considered. But we should always first try to make everything work
>>     with the
>>     same version (if possible, the newer one).
>>
>>
>> The requirement to work with multiple versions of a package come up in
>> the scientific/HPC community very frequently. Its not always about API
>> compatibility, sometimes exact numerical reproduction is required which
>> isn't preserved even between minor versions (i.e. an OS update).
> I don't buy this argument wrt. Fedora.
>
> Fedora is a rapid moving, forward looking distro, in which such 
> regressions should be fixed and not be worked around by compat-libs.
>
> Ralf
>
>

I guess the main point is missed completely. The main proposal is not 
mainly about compatibility. It's about providing latest development 
libraries in stable releases for *user* consumption (not for distro 
one). Also, the compatibility package is solely provided for user 
consumption; *no* Fedora package should be built against it (unless it 
happens already).

There are some arguments against providing such thing in Fedora, but if 
someone wants to install two versions of the same library (e.g. 
installing the latest version for development while having default 
version for Fedora packages); he'll do it anyway. So, if such packages 
are not provided by Fedora, he will install from source. So, the user 
will install multiple versions anyway. Do you want to support him, or not?

Regards,
Hedayat
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