This is really a question for r-devel, or as you use our Debian / Ubuntu package terminology, r-sig-debian.
In short:
Question 1 is AFAICT a no. The R C API did not change. The design of Rapache heavily influenced our much smaller littler
r
, andr
runs just fine on my Ubuntu box after installing R 3.0.0 from Michael's builds based on my packages. Even though littler (seer --version
) was built against R 2.15.2.Question 2 is a no, and that is no change. R always moves "forward in time", not backwards. Just how we need package rebuilds when NAMESPACES were added, and when the help format changed. So if you have N different R versions with M different ABIs for packages, you may need M trees and manage your libPaths. Nothing new here.