Re: 5.1 beta problem linking luac against .so

[David Given <dg@...>]

On Thursday 24 November 2005 23:49, Klaus Ripke wrote:
[...]
> who are they to set "standards" how software is supposed to work?

Um, they're the people who are designing the operating system. It's their job. 
Remember: Linux is not an OS, it's an OS *kernel*. Your build your operating 
system out of parts, and the kernel is just one part, as is Lua. Debian is 
one Linux-based OS. Red Hat is another Linux-based OS that just happens to be 
largely compatible. It's the people who put together the parts whose job it 
is to make sure that all the parts interoperate correctly.

[...]
> Easy to maintain?
> Like just redirecting liblua.so.5 from liblua.so.5.0 to liblua.so.5.1?
> In accordance with all those "standards" about major and minor and x,
> but blowing up just plain everything.

Well, yeah, which is why you don't do that. Because Lua 5.0 is a substantially 
different beast to Lua 5.1, Debian supplies them as different packages. It's 
the package maintainer's job to make sure that no update ever breaks things. 
Debian is incredibly strict about this, and it's one reason why Debian works 
so well.

[...]
> OTOH, I'd really hate to see my app blow up just because
> of some "update" and so I will always link it statically.

...and any Debian package maintainer worth their Debian membership will swear 
at you, because you've just prevented *any* security updates or bugfixes from 
*ever* getting automatically applied to your package! You'll end up having to 
make *your* package maintainer duplicate all the work that the real Lua 
package maintainer has already done, months ago...

I'd strongly recommend reading the relevant bits from the Debian policy 
document (http://www.us.debian.org/doc/debian-policy). They're not idiots, 
and they have rules and best practices in place to make all this work 
*reliably* and, above all, *maintainably*... because in the long run, it's 
better to have something that works now adequately and will continue to work 
adequatly over something that works now well but will break tomorrow.

-- 
+- David Given --McQ-+ 
|  dg@cowlark.com    | "Those that repeat truisms, are also forced to
| (dg@tao-group.com) | repeat them." --- Anonymous from Slashdot
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