Packaging a program with several plugins, each with different dependencies

[Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer@nic.fr>]

I'll soon have to package a program which has plugins and each plugin has 
different dependencies. For instance, a PostgreSQL plugin depends on 
PostgreSQL libraries, a LDAP plugin on the LDAP ones, etc.

I wonder about the best packaging: 

1) Putting all the plugins and the main program in one package: it means 
a huge list of dependencies.

2) Putting the main program in one package and all the plugins in another. 
It solves the problem for the people who want only the main program but 
every user who just wants one plugin will have to install all the 
dependencies of all plugins.

3) Putting the main program in one package and every plugin in a separate 
one. It will seriously boost the size of the Packages file...

Those who want to examine the upstream program:

ftp://ftp.internatif.org/pub/unix/echoping (the 6.0-BETA version).