libjvm missing .so version number

[Andrew Haley]

David Daney writes:
 > Jack Howarth wrote:
 > > Andrew,
 > >    I am just trying to find out if there are any
 > > rules in gcc development requiring shared libraries
 > > to have some so version number. Also, I don't see
 > > that adding one would present a huge problem. Why
 > > can't the files in lib/gcj-4.x.x have their own
 > > so version number that is independent of the one
 > > for libgcj? As long as the ABI for those shared
 > > libs don't change, I don't see why their so version
 > > can't stay at .0 or .1.
 > >            Jack
 > 
 > The library in question (libjvm.so) has different requirements than the 
 > rest of the libraries associated with gcj.  It has to maintain ABI 
 > compatibility with an external specification (Sun's JNI specification). 
 >   So the rules governing its versioning would be different than the 
 > rules for libgcj.so.
 > 
 > Another thing to consider is that libjvm should be loaded via the 
 > dlopen() mechanism and is not directly linked to the executable.  This 
 > eliminates the need or usefulness of any versioning.
 > 
 > This said, I don't see that there would be any harm in giving it a 
 > version.  But once done, the version would never be changed.

Yes.  This seems like something like work for its own sake.

Andrew.