Will the new GTSAM 4.3 be binary compatible with earlier versions of GTSAM 4.x?
Closed this issue · 3 comments
Quoting from the README.md file:
As of January 2023, the develop branch is officially in "Pre 4.3" mode. We envision several API-breaking changes as we switch to C++17 and away from boost.
Will this break binary compatibility? Just asking because doing so would require bumping the major version number to avoid packaging mayhem.
Are you referring to the API? I believe deprecated APIs should still be available, ABI-wise I don't know.
I was referring to ABI. If we break ABI then we'll have to bump the major version number at the package level. Here is a tool that apparently can be used to check if the ABI changes between revisions.
https://lvc.github.io/abi-compliance-checker/
At the moment GTSAM is not officially distributed with Ubuntu but through a personal package archive PPA. So we'll simply ask people to uninstall the old version and install the new version of GTSAM. Once GTSAM becomes an official Debian/Ubuntu package, this will no longer be possible: gtsam 4.3 would have to be binary compatible with gtsam 4.2.
Just wanted to bring awareness to this aspect. I will let this issue simmer for a little longer and then close it.
OK, closing this issue since it is not on the radar screen until GTSAM will be released as a proper Ubuntu package.