Debian packaging for packages that provide the same files

[jtc@acorntoolworks.com (J.T. Conklin)]

This question is related to components Dell EMC (my current employer)
are contributing to the Linux Foundation's openswitch project.

Dell is contributing platform independent packages that depend on a
platform specific package that provides configuration files. For our own
internal use, we've been using separate git repositories / packaging for
each platform specific config file package. This has worked reasonably
well so far, but we're starting to run into scalability issues as each
new platform requires a new repository. It's also less convienent when
"global" changes that effect all platforms are required.

Any scalability concerns will only get worse in the openswitch context,
as other vendors add support for their hardware.

So I've been asked to look at alternative solutions where source for all
platforms are available in a single git repository, and so developers
can build a platform-config packages for any or all supported platforms.

A complication is that each platform config package installs the same
set of files, so the normal package build technique of having all files
being installed to a common staging directory and each package's files
being selected by the debian/<package>.install doesn't work.

I could have the configure script take a platform type parameter, and
only install the files for that platform, but there doesn't seem to be
an obvious way to plumb that in to debian/control & debian/rules; in
particular, I don't think you can conditionalize the output package
names listed in the control file.

Before I put this on the back burner, I thought I'd ask whether there
are any existing packages that face this, or similar, types of issues
that I could use as a template.

Thanks in advance,

    --jtc