If boost was distributed as versioned modules and not as a monolithic source, it’s conceivable to institute some sort of API contract in meta data. But asking the current volunteer base to institute something globally when many users are consuming the code via a Linux distribution, that may or may not patch what they provide seems unreasonable. And which C++ version does the API apply to? And what if one library depends on another? Who fixes the old library without a maintainer? These guys do a GREAT job, but you forgot that the inventors of go, rust and python where all C++ programmers first, and that is why they built package management into the language. I just don’t think your request reasonable or feasible. Brian Sent from my iPhone
On Aug 5, 2025, at 9:07 AM, Andrey Semashev via Boost <boost@lists.boost.org> wrote:
On 3 Aug 2025 22:21, Artyom Beilis via Boost wrote:
What is needed is fixing the policies and creating some LTS versions... I don't understand how it isn't the _obvious_ thing for any SW developer.
LTS Boost branches might not be as useful as they may seem to address your complaints though. Instead of targeting a given Boost release (or rather, the set of releases that are compatible with your Boost usage) you would be targeting an LTS branch. Given that API/ABI between LTS branches may still break, this wouldn't be much different from the status quo. For example, you would still be dependent on a given LTS being available in a given Linux distro that you wish to target in your software.
BTW, shipping multiple Boost versions in a single Linux distro is possible, and definitely has happened in the past, at least in Debian.
From this perspective, shipping multiple LTS branches would also be no different from shipping multiple arbitrary Boost releases.
So, what you're asking is to maintain backward API/ABI compatibility basically indefinitely, which just isn't feasible. Some API/ABI changes are necessary if we want Boost libraries to progress.
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