[OpenIndiana-discuss] How many versions of libs/apps should OI provide?

[Jay F. Shachter]

The xv program (an ancient image viewer that I use extensively,
because it is the smallest and fastest of the image viewers) has code
in it for displaying files in the "new" png format, but it uses the
old png API, and you cannot compile the source with the new png header
files.  Moreover, the source to xv is never going to be updated,
unless I do it myself.

Now, imagine a png package that contains the old header files, call it
png-devel version 1, and a png package that contains the new header
files, call it png-devel version 2.  The discussion on this mailing
list seems to be whether hipster should publish more than one version
of a library.  But this question can only arise with respect to
binaries, because libraries contain version numbers, so that
whizbang.so.1 and whizbang.so.2 can coexist on the same system.  With
respect to header files, two versions cannot coexist on the same
system.  Version 1 of the png-devel package will contain the file
/usr/include/png.h and version 2 of the png-devel package will also
contain the file /usr/include/png.h and consequently installing one of
the versions will overwrite a file that belonged to the other version.

Now, if version 1 of png-devel disappears when version 2 is published,
people will not be able to compile xv on their systems.  Instead, when
png-devel version 2 is published, version 1 of png-devel should be
repackaged so that it contains, e.g., /usr/legacy/include/png.h
instead of /usr/include/png.h and it should be renamed
png-devel-legacy (or words to that effect).  Version 2 of png-devel
can coexist with png-devel-legacy because they install files into
different locations.  Calling the repackaged png-devel-legacy version 1
of png-devel would be incorrect, because it is not version 1 of
png-devel: version 1 of png-devel contained /usr/include/png.h and
png-devel-legacy does not.


        Jay F. Shachter
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