On Wed, Mar 29, 2006 at 02:36:54PM +0200, Stefan Gybas wrote:
> Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>
> >I have long wondered what the purpose of including the version number in
> >the installed name of a jar was.
>
> I don't see one and still think they are a bad idea, as stated in
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-java/2003/07/msg00086.html
>
> Most people disagreed at that time and it seems like they still do.
> Since I'm not very active any more in pkg-java I think the maintainers
> who do the actual work should decide. But at least I also like to know
> the purpose so I know why I'm wrong. :)
[...]
I can think of a couple of reasons why numbered versions of .jar files are
used:
1.) Java(TM) libraries have a notorious tendency (not unlike other languages)
to not preserve backward compatibility between significant revisions. In
the case of a large package distribution system, the likelihood of having
packages that rely on the differing versions of a library is quite high.
2.) A given library may have multiple versions within the Debian repository at
a given time. One such example would be libcommons-httpclient-java;
currently it is at version 2.0.2, a common dependency. However, a number
of packages rely on version 3.0, which is very near release but has been
in use by numerous developers and projects for some time. For that reason,
we also have a libcommons-httpclient3-java package as well. When I get
Hibernate packaged, it will be version 3.1 and I would not be surprised at
all to receive a wishlist bug report for 2.7.x.
This is really two perspectives of the same issue; the need to have more than
one version of a given piece of software is a common issue throughout Debian,
and use of files whose name contains their version is fairly common, such as
the different gcc versions.
Regards,
--
Barry Hawkins
All Things Computed
site: www.alltc.com
weblog: www.yepthatsme.com
Registered Linux User #368650
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