[From Part 2:]
“This is Part 2 in a series calling for a radically new approach
to Linux software-installation. Part 1 examined many (though not
all) of the problems with the current approaches to
software-installation. This time, we’ll take a closer look at the
technological considerations behind one of the biggest issues for
software installation: shared libraries. The best way to solve the
problem of shared libraries is to understand why they pose a
potential problem and how Linux uses them, so let’s explore these
issues.“Shared libraries remain the pivotal issue for
software-installation. Of course, talent and attention to detail by
programmers and library-maintainers can lead to compatibility
differences across different versions of shared libraries. However,
in general you can expect fewer compatibility issues as the changes
to the version numbers move farther to the right. One can usually
expect libsomething version 1.x to be incompatible with
libsomething version 2.x. You are less likely to experience
problems when you move from libsomething 1.3 to libsomething 1.4,
and even less likely to have trouble moving from libsomething 1.4.3
to libsomething 1.4.4…”