"Michael C. Richardson" <mcr@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca> writes:
>     Chris> What we _would_ need to do is bump the major number of every
>     Chris> shared library that depends on libc, or else incompatibilities
>     Chris> would result.  That's not just fun, it's pretty much intractable.
> 
>   Yes, we would have to do that.
> 
>   But, not if we provide a non-threads libc.so.12.X that was compatible with
> the old code.

And, what does that buy you?  if you're going to bump the major
number, why not just ship the last of the old line of libc's in the
compat package for the next release, and that's all you need to do?
What's the benefit of separate, parallel development of two C
libraries at the same time?


>   Why even have a major number?

Good question.  Once you come to understand the implications of
bumping the major number, it does seem fairly obvious to follow on and
ask that.  I've not come up with any good reason other than "in case,
because of some horrible catastrophic problem in the future, you
Really Really Really need to bump them."



cgd
-- 
Chris Demetriou - cgd@netbsd.org - http://www.netbsd.org/People/Pages/cgd.html
Disclaimer: Not speaking for NetBSD, just expressing my own opinion.