From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jul 30 14:47:22 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 870461065673; Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:47:22 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ianf@clue.co.za) Received: from munchkin.clue.co.za (munchkin.clue.co.za [66.219.59.160]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 536A78FC12; Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:47:22 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ianf@clue.co.za) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=simple; s=20070313; d=clue.co.za; h=Received:Received:Received:To:cc:From:Subject:In-Reply-To:References:X-Attribution:Date:Message-Id; b=Q4zyojR6om3QvD7IsDxJA2L30zJomSwQ/GlhUjbKYsEU2QmzN01VFLlOrVx/wCZ8cujONGhRKp0CSSm/dypvvwl5bmd8vOV1y5KBpTQnA5FkNnc3+9Awte40Ud2pdrhfh2Hrcx5r1SrpeyM+0ld0Mz1XDAuaP9Hz6V27pKznosbXv/MxhCd0xT3PWDC/SgqSMWFfT6gWJ6XIclTFi406nJyCx3XL6WpSCOuQFyKNBrIJHJe2fboXIpAku1HYY2fc; Received: from uucp by munchkin.clue.co.za with local-rmail (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1KOCev-0001pQ-6H; Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:28:09 +0000 Received: from ianf.clue.co.za ([10.0.0.6] helo=clue.co.za) by urchin.clue.co.za with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1KOCeJ-0000Dn-7D; Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:27:31 +0000 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=clue.co.za) by clue.co.za with esmtp (Exim 4.69 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1KOCeF-0001Bi-Oo; Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:27:27 +0200 To: David Southwell From: Ian FREISLICH In-Reply-To: <200807300247.34948.david@vizion2000.net> References: <200807300247.34948.david@vizion2000.net> <1217346345.12322.31.camel@bauer.cse.buffalo.edu> X-Attribution: BOFH Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:27:27 +0200 Message-Id: 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 14:47:22 -0000 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