[Debian GNUstep maintainers] Bug#655433: libgnustep-gui: dependencies prevent multiple ABI versions from being installed at once

[Jonathan Nieder]

Source: gnustep-gui
Version: 0.20.0-2
Severity: important
Justification: prevents smooth upgrades (see policy §8.1)

Yavor Doganov wrote[1]:

> No, I don't think so.  gnustep-gui in wheezy has a new soname, so if
> someone upgrades partially a squeeze machine the new versions of these
> packages will be installed (or would have to be removed, if the user
> wishes so).

Oh!  libgnustep-gui<abiver> depends on gnustep-gui-common
(= ${source:Version}), so only one version of the library can be
installed at a time.  So partial upgrades basically don't exist, and
we don't have to worry about them --- between releases, gnustep is
upgraded as a whole.

This defeats the purpose of policy §8.1 --- multiple ABI versions
cannot be installed at the same time, and if the dependency is
accurate then this means GUI packages do not remain usable during the
upgrade.

Is this necessary, or would some dependency like gnustep-gui-common
(>= ${source:Version}) work for wheezy and future versions?

Sorry for the confusion.

Jonathan

[1] http://bugs.debian.org/645927