Package names in GNOME 2

[Joe Drew <hoserhead@woot.net>]

[Disclaimer: As the maintainer of gedit, I have a bit of a vested
interest in this.]

I can't really account for the way a some of GNOME 2 is being packaged,
at least with regard to applications and their package names. I count no
fewer than 9 applications which are being packaged with the "2" postfix:
control-center2 eog2 file-roller2 gdm2 gedit2 gnome-applets2
gnome-games2 gnome-utils2 sawfish-gnome2

This is inexplicable to me, as the upgrade of an application to be
dependent on a different set of libraries and written on a different
base should not cause it to be a different package. (The fact that GNOME
developers for some reason use separate modules instead of branches of
the same module for development should not influence Debian's decisions
for this.) 

If this ends up being the way GNOME 2 programs are packaged in Debian,
it will cause two problems:
1) User confusion. Why are there two different packages of
(gedit|gdm|eog), all of which perform the same tasks?
2) Maintainer strife. Why does a new upstream version of a program,
dependent on a different set of libraries, give a new person the right
to take over a package?

[Please feel free to ignore #2 as a rant of a bitter maintainer]

There is no good reason for, for example, gnome-games2 to exist.
gnome-games version 2 is more logical: after all, that's the reason we
have version numbers.

Now, I have to admit that I haven't been privy to (or even aware of)
these decisions. If someone can point me in the right direction I'd
appreciate it. However, As far as I know, only libraries need to have
their version number embedded in the package name, and that's only
because of soname compatibility. Why do it for applications too?

Thoughts?

-- 
Joe Drew <hoserhead@woot.net> <drew@debian.org>

Please encrypt email sent to me.


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