An alternative:
- libppl5
- libppl5-<language>
- libppl5-dev ; which includes all interface dev
- libppl5-doc
Is 5 correct? With the CVS head installed, this: objdump -p /usr/local/lib/libppl.so | grep SONAME returns: SONAME libppl.so.5
The name would have change from release to release, since we are nowhere near to offer any kind of backward compatibility. We cannot offer source compatibility, let alone binary compatibility. If this proposal means we have to create by hand files called libppl<n>* for <n> = 5, 6, 7, ... one unrelated from the other as far as CVS is concerned, then I oppose this proposal.
Yes, it will be too much work if compatibility is going to break often.
Keeping them both would be completely nonsensicaltoday and even two years from now. The parallel with libc makes no sense: in a GNU/Linux system _everything_ depends on libc, so there this versioning thing is vital to make the system practically upgradable.
I propose we try to end up with something that works, to start with, omitting the version number from the package names.
Many packages seem to do it like this, so it must be OK, even if the policy suggests a number.