[László Böszörményi] > You are right that removing public symbols from a library interface > is an ABI break and requires a SONAME change. Per coding standards > function names starting with underscore are part of the private API > and a) not to be used outside of the library, b) if used nevertheless, > it's accepted that the other code can break anytime.
Which coding standards? I believe the Debian policy require SONAME changes when the ABI break. Did I misunderstand? > First of all, critical is used for several issues like making the > system unbootable or causing huge data loss. That's not the case. I base my understanding on <URL: https://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#severities >, which state the following for critical: * critical - makes unrelated software on the system (or the whole system) break, or causes serious data loss, or introduces a security hole on systems where you install the package. My observation is that the libtiff change 'made unreleated software on the system break', making this a bug with severity 'critical'. > What you proposed is to diverge from tiff upstream and adding back the > mentioned function, then forcing a SONAME change, doing a transition > with over two hundred code rebuilds on fourteen architectures. This > makes no sense. To me it is the only approach that make sense when the ABI is broken. > As noted above, the Python Tk library copies an internal tiff function > and probably not just one but a whole set of those (just check its > compat/libtiff/libtiff source directory). Note, I do not try to defend the libtk-img developers. To me their behaviour is beside the point, which is that the tiff ABI broke (a public symbol was removed) and the SONAME as not bumped. -- Happy hacking Petter Reinholdtsen
