[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

dpkg versioned provides support and Policy



Hi,

I found a discussion thread about dpkg supporting versioned provides for
dpkg 1.10. This is definitely very useful, for example in the situation I am
experiencing when one has libxercesicu1 providing libxerces1 but xalan
depending on a particular version of libxerces1. Today, unless libxercesicu1
has a versioned provides, it is impossible to install libxercesicu1 if one
also wants a package that depends on libxerces1. Yet, that is the whole
idea... The same problem happened recently with libpng2 providing libpng1.

Policy says in 7.1
(http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html#s-depsyntax):
"All of the fields except for Provides may restrict their applicability to
particular versions of each named package." and that has been pointed out by
Guillaume (cf.
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=130861&repeatmerged=yes).
Lintian diligently checks that and reports an error :-(

Is this something that will be changed soon? Policy could be changed to say
that this is possible for every kind of package, or maybe just for
libraries, with an '=' version provides (more restrictive, and solving a
common problem with libraries). If dpkg can support them, and there is a
real need for them, that would be really nice. Otherwise, what else can we
expect? Many virtual packages for small libraries maintained by a given
maintainer (and will that even work with versions)? That would be too bad.

Now on the other hand I see that dpkg in unstable and testing is still
version 1.9. Is 1.10 going to make it there? And if so, will it have support
for versioned provides or will it not until Policy is amended? In which
case, it would be nice to be thinking about that.

Thanks,
YA
--
Sailing is harder than flying. It's amazing that man learned how to sail
first. -- Burt Rutan.



Reply to: