Re: Version specific packages

[Jules Bean <jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk>]

Peter,

How about this approach:

Packages including the executables (and whatever else is needed) are
called gri-<version>_<version> (i.e. exactly your current scheme).  These
*are* uploaded to debian.

The package gri-support_<version> contains the other stuff, currently in
your unversioned package, *except* that it doesn't provide any executable
at all.

Then, arrange it such that there are no conflicts at all between gri-<x>
and gri_support, or between gri-<x> and gri-<y>.

Now, gri-<x> will Depend: on gri-support (possibly with a version
requirement), and Provide: gri-program. (or just gri, maybe).

You can then use the update-alternatives mechanism (read up on it) to make
sure that a plain invocation to 'gri' will always catch the latest version
installed, whereas a specific invocation of gri-x will catch a particular
version.

Under these rules, all the 'gri' could be in the normal dist (in the same
way that we have many libgtk* at the moment).

Of course, we'd hope that this is a (relatively) temporary situation, and
that eventually gri will standardise its interface.

Jules

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