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Why was Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog) not “binary compatible” with Debian Sarge?

April 26, 2017Debian hedgehog hoary sarge ubuntu

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Why was Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog) not “binary compatible” with Debian Sarge?

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Many people report no problems moving packages between Ubuntu 5.04 and Sarge. But they are not entirely compatible. Ubuntu 5.04 and Debian Sarge have slightly, but significantly, different libc versions. When Ubuntu 5.04 was released, it WAS compatible with the version in Sarge, which was then in deep freeze. After the Hoary release, a change was proposed in Debian. In order to implement it, the Debian team would have to break compatibility with Hoary, which had already been released. This was discussed openly, and the decision was taken to make the change. We (at Ubuntu) absolutely believe this was the right decision by Debian. This is about open source, and we can collaborate effectively if we focus on the source code. Had Debian felt obliged NOT to implement the change, in order to maintain Ubuntu compatibility, then the open source world would in fact have been impoverished.