ABI compatibility

[Mike Frysinger]

On Wednesday 25 April 2012 22:51:00 Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) wrote:
> Now, I know that glibc doesn't gratuitously break the ABI

do you have any examples of glibc breaking ABI ?  i'm pretty sure glibc takes 
a harder line than the kernel in maintaining compatibility.  that's sort of 
the entire point of symbol versioning and that stuff is not taken lightly.

API wise, it's not uncommon for bits to shift, but we're free to do so here, 
especially as standards change.

> reading of your comments is that they provide a rather weaker
> guarantee than the statements from Linux kernel developers, where
> ABI/API compatibility is an oft-stated and overriding priority

err, no ... API compat has never been a goal in the Linux kernel.  quite the 
opposite actually (which Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt is unambiguous 
in stating).  further, ABI compatibility has basically been defined as "if it 
breaks, and no one complains, then it's OK".  there are documented cases of 
this happening in the last year, and Linus more or less held that up at the 
kernel summit this last October.
-mike
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