Boost library proposal for Natty

[Clint Byrum]

On Oct 11, 2010, at 7:30 AM, Scott Kitterman wrote:

> Boost1.42 is default in Debian Sid/Squeeze and what we have in Main for 
> Maverick.  Boost1.43 and 1.44 have been released upstream, but are not 
> packaged in Debian.  Additionally, we carried boost1.40 in Universe in 
> Maverick so that we would have a boost that built the openmpi parts of the 
> library.
> 
> My proposal for Natty is that we do ~nothing.  The Debian default of 1.42 is 
> unlikely to change before Natty feature freeze and so we should plan on this 
> being the Ubuntu default for Natty.  We should also keep a full (with MPI) 
> version of boost in the archive.  I would propose this stay at 1.40 unless a 
> newer version appears in Debian in the relatively near future.
> 

Can you explain a bit why 1.42 doesn't have MPI? I understand they
changed some things in recent releases with regard to OpenMPI, but
not exactly what has changed.

> There are still some packages using 1.40 that could migrate to 1.42.  This 
> transition should be finished so that dropping 1.40 when the time comes is 
> easy.
> 
> Comments?  Suggestions?
> 
> I'd like to get this out of the way now so that we know that all the syncs are 
> built against the version of boost we want to keep for Natty.  In the event 
> that Squeeze is released before Natty feature freeze and Debian updates to a 
> newer boost for default, then we'll look at the situation and re-evaluate.
> 


Thinking forward to the future, I'd like to see the newest version
of libraries like boost get into the earliest possible release of
Ubuntu. My reasoning here, is that if boost 1.44 is only added
during 11.10, then bugs reported in that release will not likely
have time for an upstream release which has a chance of getting
into 12.04, which will likely be the next LTS. Whereas if we ship
1.44 early, in Natty, then there will be a full 6 month cycle of
Ubuntu to have the library in users' hands, which gives us time to
evaluate and push bugs upstream well before the LTS cycle even
begins.

I also think its a good idea for us to push a little beyond Debian
when they are frozen. The proper way to do this, IMO, would be to
work hard to get these new releases into Experimental and feed bug
reports back. The more this is done, the better off Debian unstable
will be when squeeze is finally released, right?