Warren Young wrote: > Yes, but the package name changed, so I think all I have to do is ensure > the RFU request says to leave libexpat0 alone, right? Then other > package maintainers can rebuild for libexpat1 at their leisure. Unless, > that is, it's a big deal to port to expat 2?
There's more to it than that. When libfoo<n> transitions to libfoo<n+1> there is a need to create an explicit source package for libfoo<n>, because building from the 'foo' -src package of foo now creates libfoo<n+1>. In other words, you need to make a copy of the old source corresponding to the <n> abi and make it into its own -src package so that it remains possible to rebuild libfoo<n> from sources on the mirrors. This means that the setup.hint for libfoo<n> no longer simply contains an 'external-source' line but has its own -src package. Otherwise, you potentially violate the GPL licensing requirement to provide the source as it would disappear from the mirrors entirely as new 'foo' versions pushed the old one off. This is completely separate from the issue you mention that you need to keep the binary compatibiliy package around until all packages in the distro have been rebuilt against libfoo<n+1>, at which point you can finally retire it (which means bumping the release number and uploading a corresponding new package that contains an empty tar file, with category changed to _obsolete.) Brian
