On Wed, Feb 04, 2004 at 09:02:35PM -0800, Jeremy Huddleston wrote: > > > We could just set the RDEPEND in the binary packages to be >= the > > > versions installed on the system that compiled the package. > > > > Nope, this won't work, for the building-against-openssl-0.9.6-but- > > deploying-against-openssl-0.9.7 reasons. > > It will if the 0.9.7 binary packages include the 0.9.6 libraries as well.
This isn't sensible for two reasons: The GRP isn't specially treated in any way. It's just a bunch of packages that Gentoo happened to build, QA, and distribute. To implement your proposal someone would need to build every version of the package and merge them into a super-package. For something as large and frequently-updated as openssl, this would be prohibitive. (You can't just build every ebuild in the tree, you have to build every ebuild that's ever been in the tree.) The second reason is more philosophical: the reason this problem arises at all is that we don't have a strong mapping between ebuild and package contents, other than version. If we start artificially supplying a mapping, we're weaving this weakness into our tools, which makes it very difficult to upgrade or improve in the future. -- When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
