Re: Request for advice on packaging of libgoops

[Rob Browning <rlb@cs.utexas.edu>]

Mikael Djurfeldt <mdj@mdj.nada.kth.se> writes:

> GOOPS will compile differently under libguile1.3-dev and
> libguile1.4-dev.

Hi.  I told you I'd get back to you :> I just had no idea how long
it would take :<

> I'm therefore considering breaking up the GOOPS packages into
> libgoops1.3-0.9.0 and libgoops1.4-0.9.0, each compiled under a
> different Guile.

I presume you resolved this?

> How do you usually handle version numbering and control files under
> such circumstances?  (Is GUILEVERSION-GOOPSVERSION as showed above
> OK?)

It probably doesn't matter as long as you do something that makes
sense, but I'm not sure putting the guile version number in the name
is necessary.  The real key will be getting the "Depends" stuff right.

i.e. if there actually was a goops version that worked fine across
guile 1.6 and 1.8, for example, it wouldn't make sense for the guile
version number to be encoded in the name.

> Should I produce two separate source packages for libgoops1.3 and
> libgoops1.4?

If you want them both to be in the Debian archive at the same time,
yes.  Otherwise, technically speaking, the archive would be in
violation of the GPL since we could have binaries there for which
there was no source.  At least I think that's the case.

Oh, and if you've got any time, I thought there were a few items we
should probably discuss sometime soon.

  1) As it stands right now, the main guile packages build a
     libguile-dev package, rather than a libguileN-dev package.  This
     was primarily to fix a problem in the old package wrt to
     versioning sub-libs etc (AIR), but it has the added advantage of
     making sure everyone keeps up with the latest development
     package.  However, this approach also has the *disadvantage* of
     forcing everyone to keep up with the development package.  So it
     makes it very hard to keep developing for guile1.4 when guile1.6
     comes out.  I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the issue.
     Also, I wonder if, given guile-config, it might be possible to
     have a libguile9-dev and libguile10-dev that can be
     installed/used simultaneously, as long as you're willing to
     explicitly mention guileX.Y-config.  i.e. should I switch to
     versioning the -dev package again...

  2) When guile1.6 comes out, goops will be part of it, and will want
     to install it's own info pages.  How should we handle this,
     update-alternatives, or should guile1.6-doc guile1.6
     libguile10-dev conflict with and replace goops and goops-doc?
     How important will it be to keep 1.4 and 1.6 simultaneously
     installable?  I tend to think we probably should if we can.

<badger>
  Any news about your profiler?  I'd *love* to play with it.
</badger>

Hope things are going well.

Thanks

-- 
Rob Browning <rlb@cs.utexas.edu> PGP=E80E0D04F521A094 532B97F5D64E3930