Re: patch fixing FreeBSD shlib versioning

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Jean-Yves,

* Jean-Yves Lefort wrote on Mon, May 22, 2006 at 10:25:13AM CEST:
> 
> Ralf, could you please add the patch? It will give libraries a proper
> major version number (by having it reflect the library ABI rather than
> $current).

I understand this.

> It will not cause breakage since existing libraries will continue to
> use the ltmain.sh script they ship, while version downgrades in future
> libraries will be handled by FreeBSD port maintainers, as a version
> bump would be.

Usually people upgrade both the macros from libtool.m4 and the ltmain.sh
from the same Libtool distribution.  There isn't really any other safe
way: we don't ensure compatibility of ltmain.sh with different macro
versions.  (Libtool-2.0 will have measures in place to actually ensure
this.)  So, yes, there is potential for breakage.

> The goal is to allow us to gradually fix the version numbers by
> upgrading the libtool port and then forcing existing ports to use that
> new libtool.

I understand this.  I've looked around, and in fact there are packages
out there that try to compensate for the current brokenness of GNU
Libtool versioning on FreeBSD.

Now, what happens when we fix this in 1.5.24?  They need to change their
adjustments, else their packages builds will break.  Often, this
upgrading happens automatically, just by having a newer Libtool
installed.

I'm simply feeling uneasy doing the switch in a stable series.  Applying
it to CVS HEAD so it will be in 2.0 sounds much saner to me.  But really
I don't know which scenario is worse: not applying to 1.5.24 is
certainly a burden to FreeBSD packagers/ports people.

I simply would like another opinion on the choice to make.

(And I'd like to know whether FreeBSD ships with other patches against
Libtool that are good to have in GNU Libtool: if we break compatibility,
let's do it all at once.)

Cheers,
Ralf