Tools and versionning

[Loïc Minier]

        Hi,

On Mon, Aug 01, 2005, Loïc Minier wrote:
>  After discussion with upstream, they said they don't see why I did this
>  and would really prefer the latest version of the unversionned built
>  tools to be shipped instead.

 I had a look at the upstream spec files and discussed the issue further
 with upstream, and it seems they prepared things quite cleanly for us.

 I think what explains the issue best is that versionned binaries
 shouldn't be called directly: the unversionned binaries are real
 programs providing access to the underlying internal versionned
 programs that one might have shipped under /usr/libexec for the same
 effect (this probably wasn't done for backward compatibility reasons).

 Upstream suggests a layout in its spec file with the relevant parts as
 follow:
 - libgstreamer<version>
    gst-*-<version> (eg. gst-launch-0.8)
    libgstreamer-<version>.so.*
 - gstreamer-tools
    gst-* (eg. gst-launch)

 Now, it's often the case in Debian that binaries are split out of
 library packages (for example libgtk2.0-bin/libgtk2.0-0), so the fact
 that the gst-launch-0.8 etc. binaries are split in gstreamer0.8-tools
 (which has an unfortunate name) is ok with me.

 I'm now going to do some research on whether it's ok to ship a
 gstreamer-tools package (unversionned name) with the unversionned
 binaries; they don't shlib depend on libgstreamer, so the package deps
 are ok.  The questions I see at hand are whether it's ok to:
 a/ ship gstreamer0.8 source package with gstreamer-tools in sid, then
 later remove the binary package from the source when gstreamer0.10 is
 uploaded with the binary package turned on
 b/ ship gstreamer0.8 source package with gstreamer-tools in sid, and
 gstreamer0.9 with gstreamer-tools in experimental.

 If that is NOT possible, I think we will resort to using a virtual
 package, and the binary packages would probably be named either
 gstreamer-tools-0.8 or gstreamer0.8-tools (if we move the versionned
 ones out of it).

 For the case of versionned binaries, I don't think there's a rationale
 behind splitting libs/binaries into separate packages such as in the
 gtk case, so I might revert the split of the versionned binaries so
 that they get back in the library package (as upstream ships).

 I'm interested with your thoughts on these issues, with the goals of
 shipping as upstream wants it, and not diverging too much.

   Bye,

-- 
Loïc Minier <lool at dooz.org>
Come, your destiny awaits!