Debian Bug report logs - #327510
seems to have broken ABI w/o soname change

Toggle useless messages

Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: seems to have broken ABI w/o soname change

Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 13:07:24 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Package: libiw27
Version: 27+28pre9-1
Severity: normal

Once 27+28pre9-1 hit unstable, netcfg, which links to the library and
had been working, began to segfault, breaking the installer. This seems
to have been resolved by rebuilding it (see bug #327390). This suggests
to me that this new upstream version has an incompatable ABI change and
should have gotten a new soname.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.4.27
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages libiw-dev depends on:
ii  libc6-dev                    2.3.5-6     GNU C Library: Development Librari
ii  libiw28                      27+28pre9-1 Wireless tools - library

libiw-dev recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information

-- 
see shy jo

[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Message #10 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Guus Sliepen <guus@debian.org>

To: Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>, 327510@bugs.debian.org

Cc: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: Re: Bug#327510: seems to have broken ABI w/o soname change

Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 23:25:40 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

On Sat, Sep 10, 2005 at 01:07:24PM -0400, Joey Hess wrote:

> Once 27+28pre9-1 hit unstable, netcfg, which links to the library and
> had been working, began to segfault, breaking the installer. This seems
> to have been resolved by rebuilding it (see bug #327390). This suggests
> to me that this new upstream version has an incompatable ABI change and
> should have gotten a new soname.

It already got a new soname, 28, but since it is a "pre" version things
can still change. Maybe I shouldn't have packaged pre versions of
upstream's software... on the other hand this is unstable. What do you
suggest, should I notify the developers of all the packages that depend
on libiw28 that they should recompile?

-- 
Met vriendelijke groet / with kind regards,
    Guus Sliepen <guus@sliepen.eu.org>

[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Message #20 received at 327510@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>

To: Guus Sliepen <guus@debian.org>

Cc: 327510@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#327510: seems to have broken ABI w/o soname change

Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 17:52:22 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Guus Sliepen wrote:
> It already got a new soname, 28, but since it is a "pre" version things
> can still change. Maybe I shouldn't have packaged pre versions of
> upstream's software... on the other hand this is unstable. What do you
> suggest, should I notify the developers of all the packages that depend
> on libiw28 that they should recompile?

Well there arn't that many. I don't feel that tracking the pre was worth
the pain in this case, at least on the d-i side.

-- 
see shy jo

[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Message #25 received at 327510@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jean Tourrilhes <jt@hpl.hp.com>

To: Guus Sliepen <guus@sliepen.eu.org>

Cc: Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>, 327510@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: [joeyh@debian.org: Bug#327510: seems to have broken ABI w/o soname change]

Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2005 09:27:45 -0700

On Sun, Sep 11, 2005 at 12:04:08AM +0200, Guus Sliepen wrote:
> Hello Jean,
> 
> It appears programs using libiw28 break with the latest version of
> wireless-tools, unless you recompile them. Now, I know that 27 is the
> stable version and 28 is still only "pre", but I want to know if this
> was intentional or not.

	Even in pre, I try to avoid gratuitous changes. Before WT-27,
the ABI was pretty much in flux. Since WT-27, it's supposed to be
stable, but if there are changes needed, it will happen, and I can't
enforce that they all happen before pre1.
	And if you diff pre8 and pre9, you will see that there are no
explicit ABI changes. What happen is that I changed the version of
wireless.h. In the new version, IW_ENCODING_TOKEN_MAX is larger, which
make the struct wireless_config larger. As the app pass the old
smaller version, the lib goes out of bound.
	I believe one way to fix the overall problem would be to
always keep the stable version of iwlib (version 27 in our case), and
have other programs compiled against that, unless they really depend
on a feature only found in the latest version (and then, they have to
deal with the fact that it's a pre). I don't think keeping two
versions of the lib would be too difficult.

> Met vriendelijke groet / with kind regards,
>     Guus Sliepen <guus@sliepen.eu.org>

	Sorry again, and have fun...

	Jean

Message #30 received at 327510@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jean Tourrilhes <jt@hpl.hp.com>

To: Guus Sliepen <guus@sliepen.eu.org>

Cc: Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>, 327510@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: [joeyh@debian.org: Bug#327510: seems to have broken ABI w/o soname change]

Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 18:39:38 -0700

On Mon, Sep 12, 2005 at 09:27:45AM -0700, jt wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 11, 2005 at 12:04:08AM +0200, Guus Sliepen wrote:
> > Hello Jean,
> > 
> > It appears programs using libiw28 break with the latest version of
> > wireless-tools, unless you recompile them. Now, I know that 27 is the
> > stable version and 28 is still only "pre", but I want to know if this
> > was intentional or not.
> 
[...]
> 	I believe one way to fix the overall problem would be to
> always keep the stable version of iwlib (version 27 in our case)...

	Guus,

	Here are the packages you are going to do :

	1) package 'libiw27' built from WT-27
	2) package 'libiw27-dev' built from WT-27

	3) package 'libiw28' built from WT-28
	4) package 'libiw28-dev' built from WT-28
	5) package 'wireless-tools' built from WT-28

	'libiw27' and 'libiw28' can coexist, 'libiw28' does not
deprecate 'libiw27', the user can install both on the system.
	'libiw27-dev' and 'libiw28-dev' conflict.
	'wireless-tools' depend on 'libiw28'

	Here is how it works. All the wireless tools are built with an
explict dependancy on the proper version of iwlib. I currently have
installed on my system both Wireless Tools version 27 and 28, and it
work perfect.
	As the tools are always in-sync with the lib, there is never
any problem, and they can use the lastest 'pre' version of the
lib. This allow you to introduce newer versions of the tools as you
wish.
	Other apps really want to use the latest stable version of the
lib ('libiw27' in our case). Most of them will take time to use the
latest feature of iwlib, so won't suffer from that. Depending on the
latest stable guarantee those apps stability and avoid the present
problem.
	Actually, if you are really worried about those apps, just
don't make the 'libiw28-dev' package, this way they are forced to only
compile with 'libiw27-dev'.

	Now, the trick is that when I release WT-28 and WT-29-pre1,
you will need some deep magic to get the migration right.

	Another advantage is that this scheme would allow you to avoid
beeing blocked by the freeze (it would only apply to WT-27, not
WT-28).

	Have fun...

	Jean

Message #41 received at 327510@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Guus Sliepen <guus@debian.org>

To: jt@hpl.hp.com, 327510@bugs.debian.org

Cc: Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>

Subject: Re: Bug#327510: [joeyh@debian.org: Bug#327510: seems to have broken ABI w/o soname change]

Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2005 13:09:08 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 06:39:38PM -0700, Jean Tourrilhes wrote:

> > > It appears programs using libiw28 break with the latest version of
> > > wireless-tools, unless you recompile them. Now, I know that 27 is the
> > > stable version and 28 is still only "pre", but I want to know if this
> > > was intentional or not.
> > 
> [...]
> > 	I believe one way to fix the overall problem would be to
> > always keep the stable version of iwlib (version 27 in our case)...
> 
> 	Guus,
> 
> 	Here are the packages you are going to do :
> 
> 	1) package 'libiw27' built from WT-27
> 	2) package 'libiw27-dev' built from WT-27
> 
> 	3) package 'libiw28' built from WT-28
> 	4) package 'libiw28-dev' built from WT-28
> 	5) package 'wireless-tools' built from WT-28
> 
> 	'libiw27' and 'libiw28' can coexist, 'libiw28' does not
> deprecate 'libiw27', the user can install both on the system.
> 	'libiw27-dev' and 'libiw28-dev' conflict.
> 	'wireless-tools' depend on 'libiw28'

To do that properly, I would be better if libiw was packaged separate
from the wireless-tools by you. I can't do it with two source packages,
because both would build "wireless-tools" debs, which would conflict
with eachother, unless I rename the wireless-tools package to
wireless-tools27 and wireless-tools28, which is clearly undesirable.

The other option is that I keep stable versions of wireless-tools in the
unstable distribution, but upload the -pre versions to experimental. That
reduces the number of people that will install the -pre versions though.

A third option is that you increase the soname whenever you change the
API (yes, even increasing the length of some buffer counts as an API
change), even if it happens in the middle of -pre versions.

> 	Another advantage is that this scheme would allow you to avoid
> beeing blocked by the freeze (it would only apply to WT-27, not
> WT-28).

Yes. But on the other hand stable users might expect to use stable
libraries for all the programs they install, so maybe the -pre version
shouldn't end up in stable at all.

-- 
Met vriendelijke groet / with kind regards,
    Guus Sliepen <guus@sliepen.eu.org>

[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Message #46 received at 327510@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jean Tourrilhes <jt@hpl.hp.com>

To: Guus Sliepen <guus@debian.org>

Cc: 327510@bugs.debian.org, Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>

Subject: Re: Bug#327510: [joeyh@debian.org: Bug#327510: seems to have broken ABI w/o soname change]

Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2005 18:05:14 -0700

On Fri, Sep 30, 2005 at 01:09:08PM +0200, Guus Sliepen wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 06:39:38PM -0700, Jean Tourrilhes wrote:
> 
> > > > It appears programs using libiw28 break with the latest version of
> > > > wireless-tools, unless you recompile them. Now, I know that 27 is the
> > > > stable version and 28 is still only "pre", but I want to know if this
> > > > was intentional or not.
> > > 
> > [...]
> > > 	I believe one way to fix the overall problem would be to
> > > always keep the stable version of iwlib (version 27 in our case)...
> > 
> > 	Guus,
> > 
> > 	Here are the packages you are going to do :
> > 
> > 	1) package 'libiw27' built from WT-27
> > 	2) package 'libiw27-dev' built from WT-27
> > 
> > 	3) package 'libiw28' built from WT-28
> > 	4) package 'libiw28-dev' built from WT-28
> > 	5) package 'wireless-tools' built from WT-28
> > 
> > 	'libiw27' and 'libiw28' can coexist, 'libiw28' does not
> > deprecate 'libiw27', the user can install both on the system.
> > 	'libiw27-dev' and 'libiw28-dev' conflict.
> > 	'wireless-tools' depend on 'libiw28'
> 
> To do that properly, I would be better if libiw was packaged separate
> from the wireless-tools by you. I can't do it with two source packages,
> because both would build "wireless-tools" debs, which would conflict
> with eachother, unless I rename the wireless-tools package to
> wireless-tools27 and wireless-tools28, which is clearly undesirable.

	I personally don't see why it's undesirable. A lot of packages
are managed that way (gcc for example).

> The other option is that I keep stable versions of wireless-tools in the
> unstable distribution, but upload the -pre versions to experimental. That
> reduces the number of people that will install the -pre versions though.

	Yep. But that's definitely a viable option, and would be the
simplest. However, I don't know how much testing experimental recieves
(most of my bug-reports come from Debian).

> A third option is that you increase the soname whenever you change the
> API (yes, even increasing the length of some buffer counts as an API
> change), even if it happens in the middle of -pre versions.

	Well, that's not going to work. For example, the change we are
talking about, I did not expected it. So, I would have forgotten to
fix the soname.

> > 	Another advantage is that this scheme would allow you to avoid
> > beeing blocked by the freeze (it would only apply to WT-27, not
> > WT-28).
> 
> Yes. But on the other hand stable users might expect to use stable
> libraries for all the programs they install, so maybe the -pre version
> shouldn't end up in stable at all.

	Or if you have both versions, they can pick whichever they
prefer. I believe Gentoo does that :
	http://packages.gentoo.org/search/?sstring=wireless-tools

>     Guus Sliepen <guus@sliepen.eu.org>

	Have fun...

	Jean

Message #51 received at 327510@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Guus Sliepen <guus@debian.org>

To: Jean Tourrilhes <jt@hpl.hp.com>

Cc: 327510@bugs.debian.org, Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>

Subject: Re: Bug#327510: [joeyh@debian.org: Bug#327510: seems to have broken ABI w/o soname change]

Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2005 17:17:06 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

On Fri, Sep 30, 2005 at 06:05:14PM -0700, Jean Tourrilhes wrote:

> > To do that properly, I would be better if libiw was packaged separate
> > from the wireless-tools by you. I can't do it with two source packages,
> > because both would build "wireless-tools" debs, which would conflict
> > with eachother, unless I rename the wireless-tools package to
> > wireless-tools27 and wireless-tools28, which is clearly undesirable.
> 
> 	I personally don't see why it's undesirable. A lot of packages
> are managed that way (gcc for example).

Yes, but there gcc-4.0 adds new features but breaks old ones. I hope
that wireless-tools (the command line utilities) only adds new features.
I don't want two versions of the command line utilities in Debian at the
same time.

> > The other option is that I keep stable versions of wireless-tools in the
> > unstable distribution, but upload the -pre versions to experimental. That
> > reduces the number of people that will install the -pre versions though.
> 
> 	Yep. But that's definitely a viable option, and would be the
> simplest. However, I don't know how much testing experimental recieves
> (most of my bug-reports come from Debian).

I don't know either. But on the other hand, if people need the new
features they will install the experimental version anyway, and if they
don't, the new features won't be tested anyway.

I think this option has my preference.

> > A third option is that you increase the soname whenever you change the
> > API (yes, even increasing the length of some buffer counts as an API
> > change), even if it happens in the middle of -pre versions.
> 
> 	Well, that's not going to work. For example, the change we are
> talking about, I did not expected it. So, I would have forgotten to
> fix the soname.

Yes, I thought you would say that, and I don't disagree with you :)

> > Yes. But on the other hand stable users might expect to use stable
> > libraries for all the programs they install, so maybe the -pre version
> > shouldn't end up in stable at all.
> 
> 	Or if you have both versions, they can pick whichever they
> prefer. I believe Gentoo does that :
> 	http://packages.gentoo.org/search/?sstring=wireless-tools

Yes, but didn't they have some system to _automatically_ allow two
different versions of packages with exactly the same content to be
installed at the same time?  Debian does not.

-- 
Met vriendelijke groet / with kind regards,
    Guus Sliepen <guus@sliepen.eu.org>

[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Message #56 received at 327510@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Guus Sliepen <guus@debian.org>

To: Jan De Luyck <jan-bugs@kcore.org>, Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>

Cc: 327173@bugs.debian.org, 327510@bugs.debian.org

Subject: libiw28

Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 12:31:40 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hello,

You have both reported bugs about ABI incompatibility during an upgrade
of libiw28. This was not the upstream maintainer's fault, it is my fault
for packaging an unstable version of wireless-tools. Once the final
version of wireless-tools 28 is released, I will continue packaging
"pre" versions of wireless-tools, but upload them to experimental
instead. In the mean time, please recompile your packages and add a
versioned dependency on libiw28 (I suggest >= 27+28pre9).

If you have (already) done so, or if you don't agree, please let me
know.

-- 
Met vriendelijke groet / with kind regards,
    Guus Sliepen <guus@sliepen.eu.org>

[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Message #61 received at 327173-done@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Guus Sliepen <guus@debian.org>

To: 327173-done@bugs.debian.org, 327510-done@bugs.debian.org

Subject: libiw28: seems to have broken ABI w/o soname change

Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 15:47:24 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hello,

The final version of libiw28 was uploaded to unstable on April 11. As I
promised, from now on I will only upload -pre versions of wireless-tools
to experimental.

-- 
Met vriendelijke groet / with kind regards,
    Guus Sliepen <guus@sliepen.eu.org>

[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Send a report that this bug log contains spam.