Bug#382195: Offer of Assistance

[Rafael Laboissiere <rafael@debian.org>]

* Sean Kellogg <skellogg@gmail.com> [2007-01-31 12:51]:

> On Wednesday 31 January 2007 09:50:58 am Rafael Laboissiere wrote:
> > Notice that the binary package is now called libmtp5.
> 
> It's great to see someone who knows what they are doing pick this up and run 
> with it.  However, I wonder if naming the binary package after the so name is 
> the right course of action.
> 
> I refer you to the following post on the libmtp mailing list:
> http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=31351176&forum_id=48918
> 
> While obviously a joke, I don't know if upstream has decided on a
> consistent so name, er, strategy.  Would it be better to just keep the
> binary package as libmtp so that end users don't have to hunt around for
> the correct package should upstream continue to be a moving target?

Well, in the libmtp mailing list post you refer above, the developers seem
to be correctly coping with the SONAME now.  It should not be a problem in
the future.

In any event, calling the binary package libmtp is against Policy:

http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-sharedlibs.html
http://www.netfort.gr.jp/~dancer/column/libpkg-guide/libpkg-guide.html#naminglibpkg

> As a final thought, it would be great to get a package that includes all of
> the example tools that are distributed by upstream...  things like 
> mtp-detect, and so on.  Any change you could put together a "mtp-tools" 
> package?

This is a good idea and creating the new mtp-tools package is a no-brainer.
However, in order to be Policy-compliant we will have to provide man pages
for all those commands.  Painful...

-- 
Rafael