Barry Hawkins wrote: [...]
I think you make some excellent points here. In your initial message, I thought you were advocating the dropping of version numbers and not trying to do anything else, which I would consider reckless and unwise. Adopting a solution for languages that have a longer history in Debian with some proven solutions seems like a wise approach to me. So, Debian Java Maintainers, let's hear from you on this! We have to work this topic out if we are going to get a decent Java policy ready atany point in the near future.
How about using the `Specification-Version:' in the Jar Manifest[0] ? As described in [1], it would be possible to define within each Jar file wich specification version is provided by a Jar file. I think this addresses the problem discussed here. But that would be a burden on packagers, since AFAIK not many Java developpers use this field... Thomas[0] http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/versioning/spec/versioning2.html#wp91706 [1] http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/versioning/spec/versioningTOC.html