Matthew Mundell mattm@comp.leeds.ac.uk writes:
Roberto Bagnara bagnara@cs.unipr.it writes:
I would like to receive some advice about the packaging of the PPL, both for RedHat/Fedora and for Debian. Things that are not clear to me is
- how many packages should we have and what should they contain, and
- how should the packages be named.
For RedHat, we currently have a base package called `ppl' containing the core library, plus the documentation and the ppl_lcdd program. Then we have the C, GNU Prolog, SWI Prolog, SICStus Prolog and YAP Prolog interfaces in the `ppl-c', `ppl-gprolog', `ppl-swi', `ppl-sicstus' and `ppl-yap' packages, respectively. The Parma Watchdog Library is currently included in the PPL and has a package called `ppl-pwl'. Finally, debug information if in `ppl-debuginfo'.
Michael has suggested that we should name the package `libppl1' and I think he will explain us whether this is an important convention of Debian or just a matter of personal taste. I do not think that, for the PPL, sticking the number after the name is a great idea: our library is so special-purpose that coexistence on one system of multiple incompatible versions is quite unlikely. In the unlikely case this proves to be necessary we will see what to do: e.g., if we have many users depending on PPL 2.45 at the time when we release a backward-incompatible PPL 3.0, we will generate a `libppl2' or `ppl2'.
Sounds sensible.
Although, the Debian Library Packaging guide has:
Chapter 5. Naming library packages
The policy documents how to name library packages. "lib[libraryname][SONAME-version-number]" like "libc6" for /lib/libc.so.6
so it would be more in keeping to name it libppl5.
Also, should debian/compat in CVS hold 5, to match the current shared object version?