Re: [fluid-dev] SONAME Bump?

[Andrew Suffield]

On Sat, Aug 06, 2011 at 04:40:02PM +0200, Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas wrote:
> Because the SONAME is part of the file name of the runtime shared

(Is *precisely* the file name; the SONAME field is copied into a
DT_NEEDED entry when linking, and the elf loader searches for a file
by that name to complete linking at runtime)

> library, you can keep several runtime shared libraries installed in
> the system at the same time.

There's two objectives involved in this scheme, which it's helpful to
keep in mind:

1. Binaries already installed on the system should not break when a
library is upgraded. Hence, if the new library would cause an older
binary to crash, then it does not take over the SONAME of the old one.

2. Binaries already installed on the system should, where possible,
benefit from bug fixes when a library is upgraded. A binary linked
against an old SONAME will continue using the old buggier library,
until somebody remembers to rebuild it. Hence, SONAME changes should
be as infrequent as possible. (Where critical, vendors can and often
do backport bug fixes to older versions while retaining the ABI)