Re: [Firebird-devel] library soname for fbclient and fbembed

[Alex P. <pes...@ma...>]

On Monday 06 August 2007 17:18, Damyan Ivanov wrote:
> Hi, Alex,
>
> Foreword: The topic is quite complicated and I am certain that I don't
> know all the answers. If something from the writings below is not clear,
> blame me and ask for clarification.

Damyan, one little thing to adjust.
Suppose we have application originally linked with libfbclient.so.2.1 having 
soname libfbclient.so.2.0. Me thinks it's desirable to have it working 
correctly with libfbclient.so.2.0? This may not always be so. I.e. building 
with version N, and using with N+M is OK - should be OK if no new errors :-), 
but building with N and using with N-M may be bad even in subreleases.

For example (it's about windows, but something similiar may be applied to 
linux too in the future). Version 2.1 has trusted authentication capability 
with server 2.1 (or higher), running on windows server. Application certainly 
may relay on it, even not providing login box at all. Be sure, it will not 
work with old client.

I always thought that package managers can solve this problem with some better 
logic than simple comparison of 2 text strings like soname works. The same 
applies to fb3 architecture - people will be able to have fb4 with it's 
libfirebird.so.4.x installed, but it will be able to call old engine for old 
databases. On my mind, use of libfirebird.so with version even in point 
release smaller then required by program is bad - it can contain bugs fixed 
only on the next point release, but present in old one and preventing program 
from normal operation.

I believe we can invent some hack for 2.1, but much more interesting now (me 
thinks) is preparing the 'ideal' requiremnets from the project to so naming, 
is not it so? And deal with 2.1 in that same manner.

Alex.

PS. Happened to be not very 'little thing' :)