|
|
|
|
|
|
by indianboy42
1787 days ago
|
|
|
Is it required for open source software to support every combination of compiler, kernel, libc etc? We wouldn't say it has to support every version of any other dependency (not provided by system) It's definitely a nice to have, but I think it's also valid for some project to say we support the version we used in CI and for releases. On the other hand you could say being stuck on a specific version is skin to relying on implementation details, which is a code smell atleast. |
|
|
If the versions of the components are within the range of what is defined at supported, then yes, absolutely. Most open source software supports a certain range of all the dependencies it needs to compile, like libfoo >= 0.2 - <= 0.5, libbar >= 1.0.0 - <= 1.8.0 and so on. This is encoded in the build scripts that check for this and set up the final Makefiles or whatever to actually compile the thing.
In practice it's more difficult because distributions often "fix" build scripts to allow versions outside this range, or the libraries they ship are heavily patched, but in that case it's still a bug, just some else's.
I think writing something against only a single specific version of anything is a shoddy practice and leads to brittle and ultimately hard to maintain software. It means you can't easily do updates and will depend on bugs in whatever version you use.
If you seriously suggested that way to handle things to an open source project most would laugh at you.