Re: allowing coexistence for -dev packages

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>]

Nicolas Boulenguez writes:
> Unless I miss something in the current policy for Ada packages,
>
> http://people.debian.org/~lbrenta/debian-ada-policy.html
>
> the scenario "coexistence allowed" for library foo is the same than
> the scenario "coexistence not allowed" for library foo4, except that:
> - the dev package is named libfoo4-dev, not libfoo4-V-dev
> - the lib package is named libfoo4, not libfoo4-N
> - there is neither soversion nor aliversion for foo4.
>   (if anything changes, a new library named foo5 is born)
>
> Why not drop the "coexistence allowed" scenario, and consider that
> gtkada2, gtkada3, gnat4.6 and gnat4.8 are distinct library names, each
> one of them following the "coexistence not allowed" scenario?
>
> Bonus: each library would now have its own ali and so version. For
> example, libgtkada2-24.1-dev would Break/Replace libgtkada2-23.7-dev,
> but could coexist with libgtkada3-3.1-dev and later with
> libgtkada3-3.2-dev.

I think you are correct but it is also important to guide package
maintainers in deciding how they should support multiple versions of a
library simultaneously.  The "coexistence allowed" policy makes this
explicit rather than implicit as in "just create two libraries with no
coexistence allowed".

Also, this documents the extensive thinking that went into this critical
aspect of the Debian Policy for Ada :)

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.