* Erik Troan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [001024 08:50]: > On Tue, 24 Oct 2000, Matt Taggart wrote: > > > How? If an application needs a particular library will it search the whole > > filesystem for the .so? Or maybe just the library path? Will it be able to > > determine library versions? By just looking at the name or actually looking > > at > > the symbols etc? What happens if a user has a half installed version of a > > library package built from a buggy CVS snapshot. Will that meet the > > dependency > > and allow the application to install? > > > > Libraries are reasonably easy as they do contain symbols. Testing to see > if you have a new enough build of apache is much more difficult; the > filesystem > simply does not contain that kind of information. Trying to cruft together > a packaging design which gets everything from the filesystem is bound to > fail. There is a good reason dpkg, rpm and their predecessors use a separate > database to store this information. >
And all someone has to do to subvert the whole system is to ./configure;make;make install. Nothing goes in the database. Are you saying we should stop compiling things on our own? Wait - I already know your response...you're talking about only those things that comprise LSB compatibility, and THOSE things will be in the database. IMO that's a terribly narrow approach to take. It solves LSB's problems but not the problems of the end user who will certainly go beyond LSB. And since LSB is an incredibly tiny portion of any complete system, that's quite a big difference. -Nick -- ********************************************************** Nicholas Petreley Caldera Systems - LinuxWorld/InfoWorld [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.petreley.com - Eph 6:12 ********************************************************** .
