The future of Linux - architecture and package inter-dependencies

[Patrice Dumas]

> The package inter-dependency at "RELEASE" level is killing it.
> 
> Ideally I would start thinking of a real multi-tiered solution with a
> clear separation of concerns, and the establishment of core APIs which
> first priority should be to maintain the compatibility with previous
> releases.
> Too much is now changed from release to release only because of the lack
> of proper planning and design of the interfaces.

I think that this issue is not specific of fedora. The issue comes from
upstream where incompatible api or abi are used. And it widely depends on 
which package you're looking at. For example glibc is very stable (thanks
to proper use of library versionning), while recently (if I'm not wrong) 
gcc has been breaking binary compatibility quite a lot in g++. Other 
libraries may benefit from using library versionning (motif comes to my 
mind), but it isn't a fedora issue. 

Breaking api/abi isn't necessarily bad, as it allows to move on. Fedora
doesn't avoid those changes as the aim of fedora is to use the newest
technologies. 

If you want to use stable platforms, there are RHEL and its clones, or 
the debian stable, but then you won't be able to upgrade to newest 
application versions if the upstream doesn't allow it.

To state it otherwise, if you want improvements in the stability of free 
software, then you'll have to help each of the project libraries that don't 
have a stable api/abi, but fedora uses what exists and is the most recent.

--
Pat