Bug#154950: Gnome 2 transition

[Ian Jackson <ian@davenant.greenend.org.uk>]

Raul Miller writes ("Bug#154950: Gnome 2 transition"):
> That said: Ian's proposal is incomplete.  It only addresses package
> names, and does not address file paths/names for files which are the same
> (or are named the same) in both gnome1 and gnome2.

For executable programs, of course, we can use alternatives.  That's
what they're there for.  If this is not sufficiently easy for some
reason, perhaps it would be better to add a feature somewhere to make
it easier.

Can Gnome1 programs run on a Gnome2 desktop and vice versa ?  If not
then we could invent a standard wrapper script that chooses the right
version based on the current desktop.

Runtime libraries are not supposed to be incompatible unless they have
different sonames and can coexist.

What other files are involved ?

> Some of these issues are subtle [for example: sawfish, where there's no
> difference between sawfish in gnome1 vs. gnome2 but there is a difference
> in what libraries it's (dynamically) linked against].

If the libraries are compatible, why not just keep linking against the
old library until the new one is truly stable ?

Ian.