[webkit-dev] Introducing a minimum ICU version for WebKit

[Adrien Destugues]

>Also, sadly ICU does not maintain a stable API or ABI. So every 
>application and library using ICU would need to be rebuilt and updated 
>at the same time. Then the update would break any custom software that 
>users have using the system ICU. Such an update would go badly... 
>probably would wind up in tech news once people notice the breakage.
>

Icu can be built with all its abi inside a different namespace for each version, so that multiple versions can live side by side and even be loaded in the same process without conflicts. Are Linux distros not packaging it that way? It makes updates easier as the transition can be made more gradually, at least.

And it would make it possible to ship a newer icu with webkit, while not risking conflicts with the system provided one.

-- 
Adrien.