Re: packaging and binary incompatibility coming from the compiler

[Linus Walleij <triad df lth se>]

On Tue, 17 Apr 2007, Patrice Dumas wrote:

> > The Fedora technique has been to rebuild all packages when a new compiler
> > breaking the ABI is introduced. This means new compiler ABIs can only
> > coincide with new Fedora releases, and it's been working quite well.
>
> But what about user compiled programs that are not in the Fedora
> collection?

Include the program into Fedora if it is generally useful.

Or release new binaries with each new Fedora release (.fc6 package, .fc7 
package ...)

That's the current rationale.

This is also the reason why EDA vendors and whathaveyou proprietary 
software tie their software to RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux). That 
product has a slow release cycle and long support cycle and that's exactly 
what someone packaging binary software wants.

For a mainly source-recompile-based distro like Fedora, we can break the 
ABI with each release and also happily do so :)

Linus