Re: XPM

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Josip Rodin wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 04, 1999 at 06:01:51PM +0100, Santiago Vila wrote:
> > > This is the new naming scheme, that would standardize the package
> > > names:
> > > 
> > >    xpm4g -> libxpm4                      the .so.* library
> > >    xpm4g-dev -> libxpm-dev               the .a and .so + sxpm
> > >    xpm4.7 -> libxpm4-alt                 the libc5 version
> > >    xpm4-altdev -> libxpm4-altdev         the libc5 devel. version
> > 
> > Since the packaging system does not support package renamings yet,
> 
> ITYM does not support it *properly*, [...]

Well, I mean there is not a way to tell dpkg "Package Foo is the same as
package Bar and you should consider them as being one and the same".
Since this is not the case, people who, after all, insist on renaming
packages usually rely on already existing dependencies.

I suppose that renaming xpm4g to libxpm4 would work, as long as you make
libxpm4 to provide xpm4g, but since we need versioned provides, I think it
is a bad idea (would not be much better to wait for "xpm5" and use the
"right" names only for the new libraries?).

Regarding the libc5 libs: Since they will disappear sometime soon, I don't
see the point in renaming them. IMHO, this is more trouble than it worth.

For xpm4g-dev -> libxpm-dev, since it is possible that the user
will not have any package which depends on xpm4g-dev, how will you ensure
that the user will install the new package? Will you create an ugly dummy
package or will you force the user to read the release notes again?


I want the release notes to be ideally an empty document.
The packaging system should ideally care of everything.
This is my release goal for potato.

Thanks.

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