binary compatibility query

[Julian Elischer]

Carl Shapiro wrote:
> Kris & Julian
> 
> Thank you for clarifiying the compatibility situation.  This
> information was exactly what I was looking for.
> 
> I have a follow-up question based on this remark...
> 
> On 5/5/08, Kris Kennaway <kris at freebsd.org> wrote:
>>  Actually we don't attempt to keep this form of ABI compatibility (running
>> 6.3 binaries on 6.0, for example), because it basically precludes ever
>> adding new functions to libc within a branch, or new syscalls to the kernel.
>>  You are correct that often binaries will not notice these accumulated
>> changes though, or can be carefully constructed to avoid them.
> 
> If my binary only executes system calls indirectly through libc
> interfaces, as far as libc and libm are concerned, are new symbols the
> only thing I need to worry about?
> 
> Carl


basically if you rely only on the standard posix interfaces and don't
do anything exotic then you will "probably" be safe.

the really safe way of course it to make a 6.0 chroot on your machine 
and compile your app there.