Bug#308339: Wrong source package name

Jeroen van Wolffelaar Jeroen van Wolffelaar <jeroen@wolffelaar.nl>, 308339@bugs.debian.org
Fri May 13 14:10:03 2005


On Fri, May 13, 2005 at 08:24:12AM +0200, Arnaud Vandyck wrote:
> Fri, 13 May 2005 00:02:58 +0200, 
> Jeroen van Wolffelaar <jeroen@wolffelaar.nl> wrote: 
> 
> > On Thu, May 12, 2005 at 11:51:02PM +0200, Arnaud Vandyck wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> >> You mean creating a tarball with the two different versions of the
> >> lib?!  And why do you want we change the name of the source package
> >> when the first one is removed?
> >
> > What I mean is to indeed have different binary package package names,
> > the libraries are incompatible anyway.
> >
> > My only point is to have the *same* _source_ package name. This does
> > mean that the old library will get deleted on upload, so that all
> > depending packages will need to be updated in about the same
> > timeframe.
> 
> So it's the responsability of the maintainer of a library to know which
> packages are linked against its lib? And if he drop a library, he could
> drop dependencies for some packages?

Eh, basicaly yes. Libraries have an important function within the
packages of Debian -- most other packages should know about their users
and make sure that for them it works ok, while for library packages,
library maintainers should know about the packages using it. This
includes thinking in time about whether the libraries is needed anymore
if there aren't any, but also choosing a good time to transition to a
new version, research what's needed for that, and file bugs on depending
packages to convert. After a period of time, which depending on the
release schedule can be long or short, a library maintainer can decide
to just drop the old version. This happens all the time, and mostly one
of the library maintainers at some point goes NMU'ing the packages still
not upgraded to get the transition done.
 
> The log4j transition took more than a year!

I didn't follow that at all, but why did this transition take so long?
Most transitions can be done easily within a month or even shorter.
 
> > This usually should be easily doable, and when doing so, it means less
> > work for all and no obsolete packages hanging around for long times --
> > no need to ask for removals, and a swift transition.
> 
> No need for removals also means that only the maintainer decide if he
> can remove the package or not! No one can voice against the removal of a
> particular version of a lib. Those transitions are not always easy.

That's indeed up to the library maintainer to decide. If the transition
can be very hard, because of much changes etc, it might make sense to
have multiple versions at the same time. Unstable being unstable though,
there is something to say for forcing transitions to be swiftly, because
it means extra maintainance for all. Once can have the new version in
experimental, so depending packages can prepare the transition.
 
> > This is of course of medium/long-term importance, and of course this all
> > is to be decided how to precisely do when the situation arises.
> 
> OK, it's if medium/long-term importance, I can understand your point,
> but the way I understood your bug report:
> 
>     ??Library packages should not have a version-specific source-package
>     name[...]??
> 
> It's not a question, or a proposal, it seems like a request (but maybe
> my english is not that good and I don't understand 'should' has I
> should) or an order! Thanks to clarify.

In the ideal world, it's better for library packages, in general, to
have the same source package name at all times, yes. I meant 'should' as
in "unless there is a good reason not too, this would be the right thing
to do".
 
> If it's a medium/long-term proposal, you can help me understanding who
> you'll solve the version of two binary packages with the same source?
> Will I have to play with extra debian files or is there a way to decide
> the version number from the debian/changelog file? Do we have to rebuild
> all these source packages with tarballs inside? If it's the case, maybe
> it's only me but it takes me more time to deal with such packages and
> it's the case when I have to patch them. Also, dealing with patches from
> two different upstream sources seems funny ;-)

You can already always name the source package as you like, how the
binary packages are named is completely independent and controlled from
debian/control. There is no requirement that the source package is
called after the main binary package.

You're completely right it makes no sense to have multiple sources in
one source package, indeed, that was not at all what I intended :). If
that's needed for one reason or the other, indeed multiple source
packages are the way to go.

--Jeroen

-- 
Jeroen van Wolffelaar
Jeroen@wolffelaar.nl (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357)
http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl