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It's one thing that always puzzles me: when the software is distributed in binary form vendors sometimes provide several binaries compiled with a different versions of GCC. I use Opera browser as an example but I remember other software vendors do the same.

Opera provides several builds for their browser (http://snapshot.opera.com/unix/10.0-Alpha-1/intel-linux/):

  • opera-10.00-4102.gcc4-qt4.i386.rpm
  • opera_10.00.4102.gcc4.qt3_i386.deb
  • opera-10.00-4102.gcc4-qt4.i386.tar.gz
  • (etc.)

Why is the GCC version stated? I suppose it has nothing to do with dependency management unlike the packaging (RPM or DEB) or Qt version.

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In this case it's because QT is built in C++ and several recent GCC releases have broken the C++ ABI, which is why you need the version wiht the same ABI as your system.

Generally commercial apps are shipped statically linked where possible as relying on system libraries (with the possible exception of libc) is fraught with peril.

Some details of Debian's last change of C++ ABI can be seen at:

http://lwn.net/Articles/139810/

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