# Protobuf dependency?

**URL:** <https://forums.foundationdb.org/t/protobuf-dependency/1021>\
**Category:** Record Layer\
**Created:** [January 15, 2019, 5:31am UTC](https://forums.foundationdb.org/t/protobuf-dependency/1021 "2019-01-15T05:31:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![gaurav](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b487fb/32.png) [@gaurav](https://forums.foundationdb.org/u/gaurav)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 5:31am UTC](https://forums.foundationdb.org/t/protobuf-dependency/1021/1 "2019-01-15T05:31:06Z")

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Hi,

Is Proto3 a strong requirement for Record Layer itself, or can we choose to use Proto2 with Record Layer? --thanks

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**Author:** ![alloc](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/foundationdb/user_avatar/forums.foundationdb.org/alloc/32/9_2.png) [@alloc](https://forums.foundationdb.org/u/alloc)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 2:55pm UTC](https://forums.foundationdb.org/t/protobuf-dependency/1021/2 "2019-01-15T14:55:34Z")

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The Record Layer publishes two sets of artifacts, one that depends on proto2 and one that depends on proto3. There’s more information on that in the versioning documentation: [https://foundationdb.github.io/fdb-record-layer/Versioning.html#variants](https://foundationdb.github.io/fdb-record-layer/Versioning.html#variants)