[fpc-devel] LinkLib Issues In Lazarus and in FPC-2.0.2

[Marco van de Voort]

On Mon, Jul 17, 2006 at 01:56:38PM +0200, Micha Nelissen wrote:
> Marco van de Voort wrote:
> >> They can't do that without breaking all other packages in the archive
> >> using this package. They don't get rebuilt automatically AFAIK, and
> >> that's where the difference is IMHO.
> > 
> > I don't understand this. Afaik there is no difference at all. Could you be
> > more elaborate in what you think would go wrong automatically?
> 
> My view of source based distributions (in the general software sense) is
> that when a package maintainer uploads a new library version (changing
> the library name correctly according to that distro's packaging rules)
> then all dependent software is automatically recompiled for the new
> version (and name), and thus no one notices any breakages. Except 3rd
> parties like us.

This is not for inbetween releases, since not all software will be
automatically recompiled in all cases. And in this case specifically it
doesn't matter at all. Moreover source and binary packages can be used
together (and in practice, are), and there are build clusters (pointy hat)
that check this.

It only is true for full releases, since that forces all apps to recompile,
then we get the heat. But this is also so on Linux, usually we only get the
indication that something is wrong when new distro (+version) emerges.