[csw-maintainers] Package incompatibility, any suggestions?

[Dagobert Michelsen]

Hi Roger,

Am 24.03.2009 um 12:55 schrieb Roger Håkansson:
> I started to update libnet but found a problem...
> The API changed a lot between version 1.0.x and 1.1.x which requires  
> a rewrite of the code if you use libnet.
> Since there are a number of packages which use libnet I took a look  
> at their upstream versions and there are a few which support libnet  
> 1.1, but also a lot which don't.
>
> I've taken a look at how other tackle this problem and debian for  
> instance have two packages libnet0 and libnet1 which just inlucde  
> the shared libraries, but their -dev packages are incompatible since  
> they share some filenames.
> RedHat based distros also have two packages, but they have the same  
> filename and are thus incompatible.
>
> So the question is how to proceed here?
> Should I create a new package which have its own subdir (like gcc3/ 
> gcc4) for packages which are compatible with 1.1.x or should I just  
> ignore the 1.1.x?

The question is if there are packages which are still requiring libnet  
1.0.x
devel files. If yes, it is appropriate to make two packages (the  
existing
CSWlibnet and maybe CSWlibnet11). If no you can just include the shared
libraries in one package with version modulations (see readline or  
libtool
for examples).


Best regards

   -- Dago