ServiceStack.Interfaces.dll no longer copied over to dependent projects

Question

After upgrading to ServiceStack v3.9.70 via nuGet from v3.9.43, I noticed that the ServiceStack.Interfaces.dll is no longer copied over to projects that depend on the class library using ServiceStack. This causes the following error:

System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'ServiceStack.Interfaces, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
File name: 'ServiceStack.Interfaces, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'

All other ServiceStack dlls are copied, only ServiceStack.Interfaces is missing. All references are set to Copy Local = True, and this StackOverflow post's suggestion does not solve the problem.

I noticed that ServiceStack.Interfaces.dll is the only one with a version of 1.0.0.0, all others are set to 3.9.70.0. Could this be a cause?

Does anyone know how to fix it without manually referencing ServiceStack.Interfaces.dll in cascade in all projects referencing my class library?

Update - 2014-03-06

Problem still exists with v3.9.71.0. It really is related to the fact that the ServiceStack.Interfaces assembly has its version left to 1.0.0.0 instead of being.

I cloned the github repository for ServiceStack and changed this line in the build\build.proj file and ran build\build.bat.

<!-- Exclude versioning future strong-named libs -->
<RegexTransform Include="$(BuildSolutionDir)/src/**/AssemblyInfo.cs"
                Exclude="$(SrcDir)/ServiceStack.Interfaces*/Properties/AssemblyInfo.cs">
   <Find>\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+</Find>
   <ReplaceWith>$(Version)</ReplaceWith>
</RegexTransform>

for this (noticed the removed exclusion)

<RegexTransform Include="$(BuildSolutionDir)/src/**/AssemblyInfo.cs">
   <Find>\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+</Find>
   <ReplaceWith>$(Version)</ReplaceWith>
</RegexTransform>

Result: Now it works correctly, i.e. the file ServiceStack.Interfaces.dll is copied over to projects referencing a project that references ServiceStack.

Can someone explains this to me? Why would you want to exclude the Interfaces from versionning?

Answer 1

The assembly versions were intentionally changed from 3.9.* to 1.0.0.0 when the v4 was released.

It probably was due to v4 ServiceStack.Interfaces.dll being changed to being strong-named and versioned 4.0. The 'bsd' 3.9.* version was rolled back to 1.0, probably to be clearly the oldest possible.

More detail in noted in this SO answer.