Re: [gentoo-dev] libpcre.so.3 - Compatibility with Debian

[James Le Cuirot]

On Thu, 11 Aug 2016 22:50:53 +0200
Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o> wrote:

> > We don't package Steam itself and doing so isn't viable. We package
> > upstream's script for bootstrapping it under the user's HOME. As
> > such, there is nowhere to create such a symlink. It's not actually
> > Steam itself that requires libpcre.so.3 but (at least) one of its
> > games. You similarly can't create a symlink for each game because
> > they also get installed under HOME or some other user-defined
> > location.
>
> Well, how about you package a script to easily install Ubuntu on top
> of Gentoo? That should make your system much more compliant with
> Valve's idiocy than random symlinks.

With the exception of this, every game I've tried so far works with the
packages we have now. We're talking about one symlink here.

> > I have summed up the feedback. I have also considered that we don't
> > install the likes of libpng12.so.0 to a different location, even
> > though this is also there solely to satisfy pre-compiled binaries.
> > We don't even have a separate package for that though I will gladly
> > compromise on that point in this case. With all that in mind, I am
> > going to install to /lib using a libpcre-debian package. Sorry if
> > you disagree but since when do we all agree on anything? :)
>
> libpng12.so.0 is an old version of a normal upstream library. It has
> been released with that SONAME upstream, and it is globally
> meaningful. libpcre.so.3 is some crappy Debian invention that's
> causing total mayhem. It's not globally meaningful, it can collide
> with a future upstream version and it messes up .so symlinks, as you
> already noticed.

That future version would never happen. Even in the highly unlikely
event that this generation of the library would go beyond libpcre.so.2,
upstream would almost certainly skip 3 because of Debian.

It does not mess up symlinks if libpcre.so.1 is already there, which it
always would be. Let's stick to the facts.

> If you are going to commit such crap into Gentoo ignoring people more
> knowledgeable than you, please spare us the effort and open a QA bug
> against it requesting that you remove it immediately. Thank you. Feel
> free to also request revoking your commit rights for explicit ignoring
> of QA feedback.

That's an unfortunate tone. I feel I hold more respect for you than
most as I often find your ideas refreshingly innovative. I would
certainly bow to any serious concerns of real breakage but no one has
managed to provide a single demonstration of how this could actually
break anything. All anyone has managed to say is that it looks untidy
in their opinion.

> Now, seriously: Steam is a total pile of crap. We already had to hack
> it to work-around completely braindead LD_LIBRARY_PATH override
> idiocy. I don't see how much of a problem would it be to add an
> additional path with crappy symlinks for it without polluting the
> whole system with crap.

No one packages OpenGL libraries like we do so you can hardly blame
them for that. I'm not exactly Steam's biggest fan and I actually avoid
it where possible but it could surely be a lot worse.

Now I don't care for drama and I've got far more important things to
give a shit about so fine, I'll concede. Some restraint during our next
debate would be appreciated.

-- 
James Le Cuirot (chewi)
Gentoo Linux Developer