Boost versions

[Willem Jan Withagen]

On 17-4-2021 14:16, Kurt Jaeger wrote:
> Getting the port to build is one thing. 
Right that is probably not very complicated.
But the API/ABI changes are indeed a pain.
Reason for all kinds of trouble with Ceph as well.

>> There used to be several versions of Boost in parallel.
> Yes. I have no idea how easy that would be.
Neither do I, it is just a vague recollection.
But there must be more libraries with that same challenge?
>
> The bigger part is, as you described:
>
>> So perhaps that is the best way to avoid having to deal with ABI/API
>> breakage...
>> After that it is up to the maintainers of the dependant packages to
>> update their package and start using boost-1.75.
> There is the implicit assumption that a patch that updates
> boost for all the dependent ports should also provide fixes
> if those ports fail to build after the update. That is
> the major task.

There are "only" 490 ports that have boost in their Makefile.
>> Or am I too simple in thinking this?
> No.
>
> The normal way would be to provide the patch, testbuild all the
> depends, list the broken ports in the PR and then a small group of
> folks can try to fix them one by one.

I have no experience in that.
Keeping up with Ceph is already quite a task, since that is a very fast 
moving task.

--WjW