[Debian GNUstep maintainers] Bug#655433: libgnustep-gui: dependencies prevent multiple ABI versions from being installed at once

[Yavor Doganov]

tags 655433 + pending
thanks

Apologies for the belated response.

At Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:27:48 -0600,
Jonathan Nieder wrote:
> Source: gnustep-gui
> Version: 0.20.0-2
> Severity: important
> Justification: prevents smooth upgrades (see policy §8.1)
> 
> Yavor Doganov wrote[1]:
> 
> > No, I don't think so.  gnustep-gui in wheezy has a new soname, so if
> > someone upgrades partially a squeeze machine the new versions of these
> > packages will be installed (or would have to be removed, if the user
> > wishes so).
> 
> Oh!  libgnustep-gui<abiver> depends on gnustep-gui-common
> (= ${source:Version}), so only one version of the library can be
> installed at a time.  So partial upgrades basically don't exist, and
> we don't have to worry about them --- between releases, gnustep is
> upgraded as a whole.

That's correct.  There was a reason for the strict dependency (sound
support IIRC); it can be relaxed now.

But the matter is more complex; the binaries in the -runtime package
are always linked to a specific version of the library.  Furthermore,
there are some binary incompatibilities between major releases that
make the supporting daemons unusable if deployed in a mixed
environment.  Upstream won't even look at such bug reports and I can't
blame them, it's a nightmare.  This problem is not limited to -gui,
but -base and -back too.