Re: Proposal: Virtual package motif, motif-dev
On Tue, 13 Nov 2001, Herbert Xu wrote:
> I wasn't talking about libmotif, but the program that you're trying to
> compile.
Sorry, this is a "perhaps will be official package which can perhaps
go to contrib but I´m afraid to non-free" package. I sended no ITP
yet because I´ll do some work before. You can find arb at
http://www.arb-home.de
> You can only use virtual packages here if binary compatibility were
> guaranteed. Unfortunately it is not. In fact, not so long ago, lesstif
> had to change its own API.
To make one step in the direction of binary compatibility or the
contrary direction?
Are there any chances that programs work with both libraries (thus they
could depend from a virtual package) or isn´t there a single program which
would work with both? The existence of a virtual package does not mean
that you have to use it but perhaps you could use it in some cases which
gives the user more freedom.
Moreover I´m not really sure if there could be a thing like
Build-Depends: lesstif-dev | virtual-package-providing-motif-lib-dev
and the resulting package just Depends from the library which was
installed while building the package. This could possibly lead to
different dependencies of a package on different architectures. Imagine
that libmotif is not available on some architecture A and so lesstif-dev
is used and on an other architecture B libmotif-dev is installed and
used. I´m not really sure if this is a problem.
The reason why I´m thinking about such stuff is that Arb (see above)
compiles without problem with lesstif and the GUI seems to work at the
first glance. But then you find some issues like not recognized strings
in an input window which does not occure if you use OpenMotif. I would
like to compare both without changing the debian/control file by just
installing the apropriate -dev package which would resolve the
Build-Depends.
I really do not know if this aproach would make sense.
Kind regards
Andreas.
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