unclear policy regarding library names

["T.Pospisek's MailLists" <tpo2@spin.ch>]

A package of mine requires the libstlport library. This library installs
as:

$ ls -l /usr/lib/libstlport*
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           16 Apr  3 12:54 /usr/lib/libstlport.a -> libstlport_gcc.a
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           20 Apr  3 12:54 /usr/lib/libstlport.so -> libstlport_gcc_41.so
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           20 Apr  3 12:54 /usr/lib/libstlport_41.so -> libstlport_gcc_41.so
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root      2122252 Jan  6 12:21 /usr/lib/libstlport_gcc.a
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           20 Apr  3 12:54 /usr/lib/libstlport_gcc.so -> libstlport_gcc_41.so
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root      1017292 Jan  6 12:21 /usr/lib/libstlport_gcc_41.so

which has not the form described in the debian-policy which uses (chapters
9 and 9.1 in the policy):

<libraryname>.so.version

As stated in 9., it's the -dev package that should make without a version
name:

<libraryname>.so -> <libraryname>.so.version

In my opinion policy is not really clear, if a certain for of a library
name is mandatory. Can someone confirm this? Maybe there should be an
explicit statement in the policy about the form of a library?

I wouldn't care much for the library not having the correct form except
for the fact that dpkg-shlibs is not able to recognise the library and so
fails to include it in the dependencies exactly because of that
non-conformance.

If the form of a library decribes above is mandatory, then I'm going to
fill a "serious" bug against the package in question which will
unfortunately prevent it's inclusion and consequently also of my package
into testing. Further, if the above described form is mandatory I'd
suggest to clarify the policy at this point and state the fact explicitly.

In case a certain form is not mandatory I'd send in a patch against
dpkg-shlibs to also recognise libraries in a form as libstlport has.

Thanks,
*t

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             Tomas Pospisek
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