Re: [gentoo-dev] does v8 shared library make sense with current upstream approach?

[Ian Stakenvicius]

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On 22/09/13 08:17 PM, "Paweł Hajdan, Jr." wrote:
> I'd like to get your feedback and opinion about removing shared v8
> library package from Gentoo. It's currently used by
> www-client/chromium, dev-db/drizzle, dev-db/mongodb, dev-lang/v8cgi
> and sci-geosciences/osgearth.
>
> net-libs/nodejs switched back to bundled v8 a long time ago:
>
> 25 Feb 2013; Patrick Lauer +nodejs-0.6.21-r2.ebuild,
> +nodejs-0.8.20.ebuild: Version bump for 0.6 and 0.8 that also
> disables shared v8 as our v8 maintainers remove all compatible
> versions
>
> Some bugs for reference:
>
> https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=417879
> https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=420995
> https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=471582
> https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=477300
> https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=484786
>
> From mongodb upstream
> <https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-10282> : "compiling with
> versions of v8 other than what is included is not currently
> supported."
>
> I'd like maintainers of all packages depending on dev-lang/v8 to
> make their packages use bundled v8 copy instead (I can file bugs
> for that, let's discuss here whether it should be done).
>
> For now V8 upstream gives no guarantees about API/ABI stability
> and actually breaks it very often
> (<http://upstream-tracker.org/versions/v8.html>). Having a shared
> library so closely tied to packages (which results in frustrating
> blockers, since v8 is updated often and chromium is synchronized
> with that) is not really much different from everyone bundling the
> library. I'd like that to improve, but for now it's time for a
> pragmatic solution to this IMHO.
>
> Paweł
>


FYI - Spidermonkey is in the exact same situation -- upstream develops
with the expectation that projects will embed the code or at best
bundle the lib.  They also completely break API with every major
version bump (ie, every 6 weeks).  Fortunately they accepted patches
that support installing multiple versions concurrently, and so I've
started slotting it in the tree.

IMO, just like spidermonkey, yes we should still try and keep libs as
system-installed rather than bundling.  Just because upstream doesn't
think it's the "right" idea and doesn't support it, doesn't mean we
shouldn't continue to push for this paradigm.  That said, I don't know
anything about v8 and if it would be feasible to slot it, and
ultimately, it's going to be up to the dev's maintaining both v8 and
its rdeps, since they're the ones that need to do the work...


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