[...]
So how about a libppl-doc?
OK: let us see how this looks like. How are the requirements of the GPL and of the GFDL satisfied then? I guess they should go in all packages and not conflict with each other, right? I mean: the GPL must be part of the base package. But it must be part also of the -dev package since the -dev package would seem to be independent from the base one (it contains the static library and the headers so it containts "the software" the same way the base package containing the shared library contains it). Since we generate documentation from comments, the GFDL should also be part of the -dev package, right? But then, why not distribute also the other files: README, BUGS, CREDITS... If we want to have several packages these are all problems that must be solved.
Well, where is the problem? Yes, IMHO all packages should provide these files, but in Debian the usually go in /usr/share/doc/<packagename>/ , so there won't be any conflict to be resolved; acutally, by listing those files in debian/docs, that will be done automatically for each package. It might be considered wasted disk-space, but that should be about all.
And, in all this separation: should we have both libppl-c and libppl-c-dev? One with the shared library and one with the static one? Arent we going to end up with 20 or so packages for something that is not really that complicate such as the PPL? Let us think about this.
Well - do you really think we should have more than one -dev -package? In boost, they do that - but each package provides quite a few header-files - which is AFAIK not the case for ppl!?
I'd opt for
- libppl<soversion> - libppl-<language><soversion> - libppl-dev - libppl-doc
I have looked around, but was not satisfied with what I found. You can consider me the RPM expert: it is not completely accurate but it is good enough for our purposes.
Matthew, can you elaborate things further? Have a look at ppl.spec.in that lists all the files that are installed by the RPM packages and see how to map them into the Debian mechanism.
The only thing I found was "epm" - see
http://www.samag.com/documents/s=8964/sam0312h/0312h.htm
- otherwise I suggest writing an awk-script that does the job automatically!?
Regards, Michael