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this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Why in Linux, Software uses a particular version of a library? Why not just say it's dependent on that library regardless of version? It become pain in ass when you are using an ancient software it required old version of newer library so you have to create symlinks of every library to match old version.
I know that sometimes newer version of Library is not compatible with software but still. And what we can do as a software developer to fix this problem? Or as a end user.
Software changes. Version 0.5 will not have the same features as Version 0.9 most of the time. Features get added over time, features get removed over time and the interface of a library might change over time too.
As a software dev, the only thing you can do is keep the same API for ever, but that is not always feasible.
To add some nuance, all features in v0.5.0 should still exist in v0.9.0 in the modern software landscape.
If v0.5.0 has features ABC and then one was then changed, under semantic versioning which most software follows these days then it should get a breaking change and would therefore get promoted to v1.0.0.
If ABC got a new feature D but ABC didn't change, it would have been v0.6.0 instead. This system, when stuck to,helps immensely when upgrading packages.
When having a breaking change pre 1.0.0, I'd expect a minor version bump instead, as 1.0.0 signals that the project is stable or at least finished enough for use.