Re: What's the -0 in libgtk2.0-0?

["Tshepang Lekhonkhobe" <tshepang@gmail.com>]

On 3/8/07, Josselin Mouette <joss@debian.org> wrote:
> Le jeudi 08 mars 2007 à 06:59 +0200, Tshepang Lekhonkhobe a écrit :
> > Hi,
> >
> > I noted that many GTK-related library packages are often named in a
> > form of libgtk2.0-0 and libglib2.0-0. What's the -0 for?
>
> This is the version information carried in the SONAME. For GTK+, the
> SONAME is libgtk-*-2.0.so.0, so the last 0 has to be matched in the
> package name as well.

Thanks.

Is the soname some kind of guarantee of API stability? Do other
distros follow a similar practice?