From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jul 30 14:32:55 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 15B511065675; Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:32:55 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from david@vizion2000.net) Received: from dns1.vizion2000.net (77-99-36-42.cable.ubr04.chap.blueyonder.co.uk [77.99.36.42]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CCB968FC14; Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:32:54 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from david@vizion2000.net) Received: by dns1.vizion2000.net (Postfix, from userid 1007) id 994BB1CC41; Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:55:30 -0700 (PDT) From: David Southwell Organization: Voice and Vision To: Ian FREISLICH Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:55:29 -0700 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.7 References: <200807300247.34948.david@vizion2000.net> <1217346345.12322.31.camel@bauer.cse.buffalo.edu> In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200807300755.30414.david@vizion2000.net> X-Mailman-Approved-At: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:45:09 +0000 Cc: Ken Smith , freebsd-stable@freebsd.org, freebsd-current Subject: Re: Upcoming ABI Breakage in RELENG_7 X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:32:55 -0000 On Wednesday 30 July 2008 07:27:27 Ian FREISLICH wrote: > David Southwell wrote: > > On Tuesday 29 July 2008 08:45:45 Ken Smith wrote: > > > Normally the FreeBSD Project tries very hard to avoid ABI breakage in > > > "Stable Branches". However occasionally the fix for a bug can not be > > > > Sometimes information gets posted to this list on the assumption that > > everyone understand what the writer means. > > > > This is one of those occasions!! > > > > For those of us who are not as well informed and experienced as others > > could someone please explain what is meant by an ABI breakage, its > > implications and how to deal with them. > > Within a major release, the project tries very hard to maintain > Binary Interface campatibility, or stability. In fact as far as I > know, this is where the name "Stable Branch" originates. > > What this means is that a binary compiled on 7.0-RELEASE should > continue to work without needing to be recompiled over the lifetime > of the 7 branch. > > ABI breakage that Ken refers to here means that a change required > to fix a bug cannot be made while maintaining binary compatibility > with previous versions. Any program that makes use of (I'm guessing) > fcntl(2) or flock(2) that runs on 7.0, will not run on >= 7.1 without > being recompiled. > > Ian > > -- > Ian Freislich Thanks that is very concise and very helpful. Question is what is the best way to determine which programs (if any) depend upon fcntl or flock on a running system? David