gmp and -dev version conflict/compatibility

[Dale Scheetz <dwarf@polaris.net>]

I'm currently working on a set of "conflict" bugs against libgmp2 and
libgmp3 development packages, and I'm beginning to wonder about the
approach I've been taking.

Way back when gmp was version 1.x and the 2.x version just came out, I had
a special reqest from another software developer, that he be able to
install both the old gmp1-dev and the newer gmp2-dev in such a way that he
could work on one piece of software that required qualities of gmp1 that
were not available in gmp2 at the same time that all other packages would 
get built against gmp2. So I created subdirectories (gmp1/) in all the
places that -dev elements were placed for gmp1, while puting the elements
of gmp2 in the more open locations. Thus unmodified packages would build
against gmp2 and specialty packages could be pointed at the gmp1
subdirectories for their desired elements.

I've heard nothing more back from that developer, and I'm begining to
wonder if I did him or myself any favors ;-)

I believe that most other libraries (I've only looked at Tk/Tcl packages)
simply conflict with each other at the -dev level while being cohabitable
at the shared library level by use of proper .so names.

I'm at the point where going to the conflict system is almost as easy as
fixing the few location bugs left over in the last libgmp2 to libgmp3
transition packaging attempt.

What I mean is, I can fix the existing bugs, or I can fix it so they don't
crop up ever again. The second is becoming very attractive to me lately,
but I thought I should get some idea from whoever reads -devel these days
about which works best in the "real" world, since the conflict method
makes it hard to do multi librarly development.

Please reply by private mail and I'll post a final compilation of the
replies back to this list, so as to keep the noise level down here. Tell
me which method you prefer, and why.

If you think there is something more here to discuss, then by all means I
want to hear about it, and probably others do as well, so feel free to
post such discussions here on -devel for broader participation.

Waiting is,

Dwarf
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