Hello Boosters,
Some clarifications:
1. I do not suggest the way boost works but I do suggest a community to think about something like boost stable.
I am just doubting that boost is the right place to tackle the ABI stability issue. Much like I think the build/test system development is better split out of boost and acquired through CMake, I think ABI stabilizing also belongs somewhere else: in distributors' responsibility. What I would rather like to see in boost would be building blocks which go better with the dynamic nature of boost development, but which could become tools for distributors putting together a stable boost. These could be: (a) Granular ABI versioning for boost components: Imagine being able to put a... int shared_ptr_abi() { return boost::shared_ptr<int>::abi_version; } ..in your shared library, and then checking for compatibility using: int main() { assert(boost::shared_ptr<int>::abi_version == shared_ptr_abi()); ... So there are no subtle bugs through ABI changes, but the program just refuses to work, notifying you about recompiling both components against the same boost version. (b) modularization of boost components: Suppose I have many libraries using boost::shared_ptr in their exported interface, while boost::asio is used extensively, but none of its objects are exposed in interfaces. Then I would prefer being able to upgrade just boost::asio, which would allow me to upgrade libraries depending on it one by one, and leave the boost::shared_ptr upgrade out until it becomes feasible to upgrade all the libraries at once.
Today it is quite feasible to take all tr1 stuff and make it ABI stable sacrificing some generality.
This would give very good to C++.
2. Booster is not a fork of boost but rather small library that allows me to get free of boost keeping boost-like API.
Maybe "fork" was bad wording considering that the code is not derived from boost. Still, as it serves as a boost replacement, I am saying that I would love to see improvements you put there to be put into boost instead, so they serve a larger audience. Best regards, Isidor