Don't just vendor - rebuild the ecosystem and persuade the vendor to work on software management ...

Posted Jan 30, 2025 18:36 UTC (Thu) by bluca (subscriber, #118303)
In reply to: Don't just vendor - rebuild the ecosystem and persuade the vendor to work on software management ... by mb
Parent article: Vendoring Go packages by default in Fedora

> Most projects are stable because they are not changed much on the interface level anymore. glibc being a notable exception.

This is absolute nonsense. Again, there is data on this, just look at it. Compare symbols exports vs SONAME revision of common system libraries. libsystemd0 alone added 213 new APIs just in the very latest release. SONAME revision is still 0.
Just because rustlang/golang library maintainers can't or won't maintain backward compatibility, it doesn't mean nobody else will.

Don't just vendor - rebuild the ecosystem and persuade the vendor to work on software management ...

Posted Jan 30, 2025 18:48 UTC (Thu) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link] (2 responses)

>Just because rustlang/golang library maintainers can't or won't maintain backward compatibility

Saying that Rust people don't maintain backward compatibility is:

>This is absolute nonsense

They do it in a very different way.
Like it or not.

There are more solutions to a problem than the Luca-way, you know?

I do understand that you either don't like or don't know what Rust people do.
But I'm just asking you politely to stop spreading this "they don't have/care about backwards compatibility" FUD.
I have ignored you for over half a year here in LWN comments and you are still busy spreading that nonsense. Why? This annoys me just as much as anti-systemd-FUD annoys you.

If you want Rust to have a stable soname/ABI, please come up with a proposal about *how* to do that.
Be constructive rather than destructive.

Don't just vendor - rebuild the ecosystem and persuade the vendor to work on software management ...

Posted Jan 30, 2025 19:41 UTC (Thu) by bluca (subscriber, #118303) [Link] (1 responses)

> I have ignored you for over half a year here in LWN comments and you are still busy spreading that nonsense. Why?

Because it's true, whether or not you like it. The standard library changes soname on every build. Backward incompatibility is programmatically baked in the build process itself.

Don't just vendor - rebuild the ecosystem and persuade the vendor to work on software management ...

Posted Jan 30, 2025 19:44 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

So are we sure that this conversation is going anywhere but in circles? Might it be time to conclude that there isn't more to be said (again)?