[csw-maintainers] Shared library placement, take 3

[Peter FELECAN]

Ben Walton <bwalton at opencsw.org> writes:

> Excerpts from Maciej Bliziński's message of Mon Jul 18 07:03:02 -0400 2011:
>
> Hi Maciej,
>
>> The questions discussed were e.g. how to compile against an older
>> version of the library. One idea was to keep header and .so files in
>> separate directories; another idea was to have incompatible dev
>> packages and that the choice of the version would be made by
>> installing or uninstalling specific dev packages.
>
> I don't recall (and haven't googled the archive) whether we discussed
> using alternatives as a mechanism that could default to newest .so but
> be toggled to older versions as required...This would allow
> side-by-side installation of the -dev packages.  For buildfarm use, it
> could be a little unpleasant if it's switched for building one package
> and then affects other users.  That might be reason enough to discard
> the idea.

I think that I proposed the alternatives solution and I still think that
it's a good solution although painful on a build-farm but where the last
version should be considered the right alternative. Using zones or other
virtual system can be an easier solution but which requires a lot of
metal. I think that we must not ignore the population of developers who
need to use different versions on their own systems. As always, look how
Debian solved the issue.

-- 
Peter