[Fwd: Re: LSARC/2007/299 Berkeley_Database_4.5.20 - fast track restarted]

[Karen Langford]

Danek Duvall wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 13, 2007 at 12:58:37PM -0800, Karen Langford wrote:
>
>   
>> My apologies if folk get this email twice.
>>
>>     
>>>>    Due to a number of customers running legacy systems on BDB 4.2 and 
>>>> not willing to upgrade to BDB 4.5, we need to deliver both versions. 
>>>>         
>>> Are the two versions incompatible in either their API's or database 
>>> formats?
>>>       
>> No, just the log file formats have changed.
>>     
>
> What are log files in this case?
>   
History of the database's transactions.
> If there are no incompatibilities between the two versions, then why are
> both required on the system at the same time?  If it's simply that known
> consumers don't trust you and are scared that it won't work, I don't think
> it's a great idea to acquiesce.  If there actually are incompatibilities
> then I can see the need.
>   
We haven't discovered any incompatibilities nor does Oracle publish
any incompatibilities between the two versions. Removing 4.2 from the release 
and only delivering 4.5 creates a risk for product consumers. In the past 
we've had consumers express concern about breakage if we replaced the library,
that said, if we did replace the library they'd have to do a database upgrade
(which is done with a tool provided). So while there isn't any true library 
incompatibilities there are necessary steps for an application using
an old library to upgrade to a new one. 

Note when we did the ARC case for 4.2 we presented that multiple libraries 
were desired and it was agreed that they were indeed necessary.
For this reason and on the advice of LSARC we reengineered the build environment 
so the libraries would follow Sun ABI guidelines,ie so.1, so.2 and so.3.

Karen


> Danek
>