1.2. Application Compatibility

This release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides dependencies so applications designed to run on earlier versions of the operating system continue to run with minimum disruption. To that end, older versions of key libraries are included to preserve legacy interfaces that might have changed between this release and prior versions. These libraries serve as dependencies primarily for applications written in C/C++.

Please note that it is not necessary to re-test or re-certify applications between minor releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat Enterprise Linux compatibility policies ensure that applications running on a version of the release will continue to run throughout the life of the release. For example, applications certified on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.0 will be fully compatible on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 and so on.

Refer to the following table for details on these compatibility packages:

Table 1.1. Compatibility Libraries

Package	Description
compat-db	The Berkeley DB database compatibility library. The Berkeley Database (Berkeley DB) is a programmatic toolkit that provides embedded database support for both traditional and client/server applications. This package contains various versions of Berkeley DB which were included in previous releases.
compat-expat1	Expat is a stream-oriented XML parser. This package provides library compatibility with previous versions.
compat-glibc	glibc is the C library used for system calls and other basic facilities. This package provides compatibility (and runtime libraries) for the compiling of binaries that require older glibc versions, and allows them to run on this release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
compat-libf2c-34	This package provides older versions of Fortran 77 shared libraries, which are needed to run dynamically-linked Fortran 77 programs.
compat-libgcc-296	Contains the 2.96 libgcc.a library and support object files to retain compatibility with older versions of GCC.
compat-libgfortran-41	This package includes a Fortran 95 runtime library for compatibility with GCC 4.1.x compiled Fortran applications.
compat-libstdc++-295	Provides compatibility with the GNU standard C++ library version 2.95.
compat-libstdc++-296	Provides compatibility with the GNU standard C++ library version 2.96.
compat-libstdc++-33	Provides compatibility with the GNU standard C++ library version 3.3.
compat-libtermcap	This package provides compatibility for older termcap-based programs.
compat-openldap	OpenLDAP is an open source suite of LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) applications and development tools. The compat-openldap package includes older versions of the OpenLDAP shared libraries which may be required by some applications.
openssl098e	This package provides OpenSSL 0.98e, which may be required for some SSL applications.