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

[Matthew Mundell]

>> An alternative:
>>  - libppl5
>>  - libppl5-<language>
>>  - libppl5-dev         ; which includes all interface dev
>>  - libppl5-doc
>> Is 5 correct?  With the CVS head installed, this:
>>    objdump -p /usr/local/lib/libppl.so | grep SONAME
>> returns:
>>   SONAME      libppl.so.5
>
> The name would have change from release to release, since we are nowhere
> near to offer any kind of backward compatibility.  We cannot offer
> source compatibility, let alone binary compatibility.  If this proposal
> means we have to create by hand files called libppl<n>*
> for <n> = 5, 6, 7, ... one unrelated from the other as far as CVS
> is concerned, then I oppose this proposal.

Yes, it will be too much work if compatibility is going to break
often.

>                        Keeping them both would be completely nonsensical
> today and even two years from now.  The parallel with libc makes no sense:
> in a GNU/Linux system _everything_  depends on libc, so there this
> versioning thing is vital to make the system practically upgradable.
>
> I propose we try to end up with something that works, to start with,
> omitting the version number from the package names.

Many packages seem to do it like this, so it must be OK, even if the
policy suggests a number.