[mlpack-svn] [MLPACK] #176: libmlpack soname is not versioned

[MLPACK Trac]

#176: libmlpack soname is not versioned
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  Reporter:  speet3       |        Owner:  rcurtin   
      Type:  enhancement  |       Status:  reopened  
  Priority:  minor        |    Milestone:  MLPACK 1.0
 Component:  MLPACK       |   Resolution:            
  Keywords:               |     Blocking:            
Blocked By:               |  
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Changes (by speet3):

  * status:  closed => reopened
  * resolution:  fixed =>


Comment:

 This actually generated a new lintian warning:

 W: libmlpack0: package-name-doesnt-match-sonames libmlpack0.99.0

 Armadillo and many (but my no means all) others tend to use just the major
 release number for the soname.  The idea is, most software compiling
 against the library shouldn't care which minor version they build against,
 or at least only require minor changes.

 If we expect every release version to be terribly incompatible with the
 previous release, then it certainly makes sense change the soname every
 release.  If, on the other hand, releases between major releases rarely
 remove symbols or change the expected operation of existing symbols, then
 changing the soname is somewhat unwarranted.

 In other words, as long as the library is backwards compatible, changing
 the soname is probably unnecessary.

 As an aside, I plan to look into an ABI checking tool such that we might
 be able to test/tell when we completely bork backwards compatibility.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://trac.research.cc.gatech.edu/fastlab/ticket/176#comment:2>
MLPACK <www.fast-lab.org>
MLPACK is an intuitive, fast, and scalable C++ machine learning library developed by the FASTLAB at Georgia Tech under Dr. Alex Gray.