Dependencies of libraries libc5-libc6 libraries

[Philippe Troin <phil@fifi.org>]

Having some arguments with someone about dependencies of libraries, 
I've posted here to have this sorted out.

Assume you have:
	libfoo           libc5 compatibility library
	libfoo-altdev    libc5 compatibility development package
	libfoog          libc6 library
	libfoog-dev      libc6 development.

Obviously you have:
	libfoo-altdev depends on libfoo
	libfoog-dev depends on libfoog
(not talking about external dependencies like on libc6, etc...)

After some discussions a few months ago on debian-devel (or -policy), 
some people (I remember David Engel and myself) argued that for some 
packages you might also want:
	libfoo depends on libfoog
	libfoo-altdev depends on libfoog-dev

Rationale:

  1) The documentation for foo is there only once in the libfoog 
package
     and libfoo has a symlink in /usr/doc to libfoog. Additional 
     support files (like /usr/lib/tclxxx for David's tcl packages) 
     are there only once in the libfoog package.

  2) The manpages for the development package are also included only 
     once in the distribution, in the libfoog package.

  3) One might argue that we could create additional package. This 
     would mean creating two extra packages: libfoo-support for the 
     common runtime files, and libfoo-dev-support for the common 
     devel files (manpages, etc...). I don't think adding two extra 
     packages per library is worth, we already just added two:
	bo: 2 packages per library
	current hamm: 4 packages per library
	hamm with this proposal: 6 packages per library

  4) The libfoo and libfoo-altdev are *compatibility* package during 
     the libc5->libc6 transition. Hopefully the final hamm will have 
     all the old libc5 packages converted to libc6. This means that 
     the libfoo and libfoo-altdev are unlikely to be installed on a 
     hamm system.
     Even if they are installed on a hamm system, it's likely that 
     their libc6 counterparts are already there, so these additional 
     depencies are just a minor annoyance.

Objections, support, welcome.
Could we have this carved in stone somewhere if it's approved ?
Sorry to dig out this again.

Phil.