[arch-general] A suggestion for the devs regarding rebuilds

[Allan McRae]

On 09/02/10 09:26, fons at kokkinizita.net wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 09, 2010 at 09:18:00AM +1000, Allan McRae wrote:
>
>> I think you miss a point here.  After a rebuild NONE of the packages
>> in the repos depend on the old library.  So there is no point in us
>> packaging the old library for compatibilty, as none is needed.  We
>> only support the latest packages in the repos, so if you have issues
>> with old versions of packages or packages from unsupported sources,
>> then it is up to you to fix them.
>
> It seems you didn't even read what I wrote.
>
> I do *not* propose to keep old versions in the repo.
> I did even write explicitly that I consider it normal
> for all packages in a repo to depend on only one
> library version.
>
> I *do* propose to not remove the actual old library
> files when installing a new one with a different major
> version. That's all.
>
> In other words, do not *force* a user to update all
> app using a library just because one of them requires
> a newer version. Doing this leaves the user with a
> broken system, possibly at the most inconvenient time.

It seems you didn't even read what I wrote. So I will repeat myself too...

We only support the latest packages in the repos, so if you have issues 
with old versions of packages or packages from unsupported sources, then 
it is up to _you_ to fix them.

Leaving files untracked by a package manager on your system goes against 
everything package management stands for.  I do not want to do this, and 
I guess all the other Arch devs would agree.  If you want to implement 
such a system, it is up to you.

Allan