Bug#83669: Shared libraries

[Brian May <bam@debian.org>]

>>>>> "Brian" == Brian May <bam@debian.org> writes:

    Brian> However, this exposes other issues, since the version of
    Brian> *.la required depends on the version of the library
    Brian> required, however only one copy of the *.la file can be
    Brian> installed, while a number of different versions of the
    Brian> shared library can be installed at the same time.

I have done a bit more research on this topic (further results still
to come), and it seems that the *.la file won't be so much a problem
as I originally though - just put it in the -dev package, and
everything should be fine.

In theory, the *.so file could be a problem. Are there any packages
that link to libx.so.2, and then try to dlopen("libx.so")? If so, then
the dlopen might use the wrong version of the library. I can't imagine
why a program would want to do this though, and even if it does, it
seems the solution is to use libltdl to dlopen("libx.la") instead,
which will automatically do the right thing (that is use the latest
version of the library).
-- 
Brian May <bam@debian.org>