> you can no longer link together files built with different versions
True but this is already something that isn't really "supported" broadly. Some standard libraries work hard to keep that working, but others tend not to, and nobody knows if it's supposed to work reliably or not. And support for this binary compatibility also varies across platforms, like I don't think Microsoft bothers since you're supposed to always bundle a specific version of the runtime with your binary.
Single-version prebuilt libraries become more of a problem, but are those that widespread vs. source-based libraries?
But I think the broader point here that the paper is really pushing is for the committee to actually make a statement on things like this instead of their historically vague "it sort of works but we're not saying it will or indeed saying anything at all"
True but this is already something that isn't really "supported" broadly. Some standard libraries work hard to keep that working, but others tend not to, and nobody knows if it's supposed to work reliably or not. And support for this binary compatibility also varies across platforms, like I don't think Microsoft bothers since you're supposed to always bundle a specific version of the runtime with your binary.
Single-version prebuilt libraries become more of a problem, but are those that widespread vs. source-based libraries?
But I think the broader point here that the paper is really pushing is for the committee to actually make a statement on things like this instead of their historically vague "it sort of works but we're not saying it will or indeed saying anything at all"