[PPL-devel] RFC: packaging the PPL for RedHat and Debian

[Roberto Bagnara]

I would like to receive some advice about the packaging of the PPL,
both for RedHat/Fedora and for Debian.  Things that are not clear
to me is

1) how many packages should we have and what should they contain, and
2) how should the packages be named.

For RedHat, we currently have a base package called `ppl' containing
the core library, plus the documentation and the ppl_lcdd program.
Then we have the C, GNU Prolog, SWI Prolog, SICStus Prolog and YAP
Prolog interfaces in the `ppl-c', `ppl-gprolog', `ppl-swi', `ppl-sicstus'
and `ppl-yap' packages, respectively.  The Parma Watchdog Library
is currently included in the PPL and has a package called `ppl-pwl'.
Finally, debug information if in `ppl-debuginfo'.

Michael has suggested that we should name the package `libppl1' and
I think he will explain us whether this is an important convention
of Debian or just a matter of personal taste.  I do not think that,
for the PPL, sticking the number after the name is a great idea:
our library is so special-purpose that coexistence on one system
of multiple incompatible versions is quite unlikely.  In the unlikely
case this proves to be necessary we will see what to do: e.g.,
if we have many users depending on PPL 2.45 at the time when we
release a backward-incompatible PPL 3.0, we will generate a `libppl2'
or `ppl2'.

I guess that, with the proposal of naming the package `libppl' instead
of `ppl', goes the suggestion that programs like `ppl_lcdd' should not
go in that package.  The question is now how many packages should we have.
Another issue concerns documentation: should it go in the base package,
in the `ppl-devel' package, or in a `ppl-doc' package?
Should static libraries go to the devel package rather than the
base one?  Should we provide versions enabled for profiling?
By the way: it seems that in Debian development packages use "dev"
instead of "devel".   Is this correct?

I would encourage you to look at %files `ppl.spec.in' in CVS head
and come up with proposals on how to package the PPL both on RedHat
and on Debian.  If you feel you are qualified only on one of these
packaging systems, please feel free to disregard the other one
(even though at the end I would like to enforce some sort of
consistency between the two).
All the best,

     Roberto

-- 
Prof. Roberto Bagnara
Computer Science Group
Department of Mathematics, University of Parma, Italy
http://www.cs.unipr.it/~bagnara/
mailto:bagnara at cs.unipr.it