editors/abiword-devel -- 2.3.2 is now available

Mikhail Teterin mi+mx at aldan.algebra.com
Thu Jul 14 23:23:31 GMT 2005


четвер 14 липень 2005 16:15, Jeremy Messenger Ви написали:
> If one of user still has old png, then result AbiWord can't build on old png 
> of library and header because user need to update png first.

Yes, this is called API incompatibility. If, indeed, the new AbiWord _really_ 
expects a newer version of png, than, by all means, the port should say so. 
My proposal would not affect this at all.

What I object to are the gratuitious requirements, when the ported software 
(AbiWord in our example) does not care -- as is the case in the vast majority 
of situations including, indeed, AbiWord.

API incompatibilities are easy -- they strike at compile time and are 
immediately obvious. In many cases the vendor's configure script will tell, 
what the problem is.

ABI incompatibilities are harder and library's major numbers are supposed to 
identify them. Fortunately, they are _irrelevant_ to building from source 
code, so let's not overplay the importance of the shared library numbers.

> A real example, if you install old package of freetype then the result is  
> that new mozilla, firefox and other gecko-based port in ports tree will  
> not build at all because of freetype's old headers don't match with newer  
> mozilla, firefox and etc.

Yes, this means, _those ports_ should be more specific in their requirements, 
for example:

	LIB_DEPENDS+=	ttf.[4-9]

But most ports should not be. There was no API change in libjpeg since, well, 
forever, for example, even though the major number went up to 9 already.

More importantly, even when you insist on particular versions of all 
libraries, the user will _still_ have a nasty problem in your example above.
The port will notice the library is missing and proceed to build it. After the 
build (possibly quite lengthy, BTW), the user will get an error: "An earlier 
version of this port is already installed".

With my plan, she/he will only need to upgrade the ports (and whatever depends 
on them), that _really_ prevent the new port from building. With the current 
situation (which you insist on keeping), they'll need to upgrade 
_everything_.

Yours,

	-mi


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