some minor Core pruning

[Matt Domsch]

On Mon, Jun 12, 2006 at 06:07:14PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> Bill Nottingham <notting at redhat.com> writes:
> > Library + binary packages required by nothing (could be killed, or moved):
> > mysqlclient10
> > mysqlclient14
> 
> Those are compatibility packages to provide ABI compatibility for
> programs built against old versions of libmysqlclient.so.  They were
> always intended to have a limited lifespan --- I don't see a reason to
> carry them forward into FC6, unless we want to offer them in RHEL5.
> Do we promise ABI compatibility across RHEL releases?

Note: I don't speak for Red Hat's marketing department.  So here's my
take:

RHEL promises N-2 ABI compatibility.  That is, apps built on RHEL3
will continue to be supported, unmodified, on RHEL5.

Fedora need not make the same promises, but obviously the longer the
distro is backwards-compatible, the longer a given build of an
application (think from some ISV) will continue to work without
significant additional time investment by the ISV.

-- 
Matt Domsch
Software Architect
Dell Linux Solutions linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux
Linux on Dell mailing lists @ http://lists.us.dell.com