db-compat

[Bill Nottingham]

Jon Masters (jonathan at jonmasters.org) said: 
> > > db-4.1 was last the system DB library in RHEL 3/FC1.
> 
> What's the point of a "compat" library if not to support software built
> for such systems? We might argue that we only care about F8/F9 and so
> start removing other "old" compat libraries, but that's hardly useful.

It depends on both the library, and the release they're referring to.

For example, db-4.3 was the DB library in FC6 and RHEL 5. That is
probably a more reasonable compat library to maintain for a longer
period than the db-4.5 that was shipped in Fedora 7 but no RHEL
release.

But including all compat for all prior releases indefinitely is
a losing proposition - the db3/db2 from RHEL 2.1 would be an
example here. Or, to pick a random library from Fedora, we don't
carry old versions of directfb indefinitely, if at all.

Bill