[RFC] xulrunner, shlibs, and dependencies.

[Steve Langasek]

On Sat, Dec 03, 2005 at 10:16:38AM +0100, Mike Hommey wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 03, 2005 at 12:28:36AM -0800, Steve Langasek <vorlon at debian.org> wrote:
> > On Sat, Dec 03, 2005 at 08:58:45AM +0100, Mike Hommey wrote:
> > > > > So my idea is the following :
> > > > > - First, I want to provide the libs with a correct soname. It won't be
> > > > > compatible with upstream until some people use clue sticks, but i'll do
> > > > > my best for them to improve on that point. Having a correct soname will
> > > > > enable us to actually use the shlibs mecanism.

> > > > > - Now, the problem is that we can't really use the sonames correctly,
> > > > > because if we succeed in the clue stick batting, we'll have different
> > > > > sonames, which, in the long term, would be painful. So, I'd like to
> > > > > provide a dummy gecko-x.y-serial or such package, which would correctly
> > > > > depend on the libxul package (with strict version if necessary), and the
> > > > > .shlibs in the libxul-dev package would say to depend on the
> > > > > gecko-x.y-serial package.

> > > > If you don't want to make up sonames (and I think having debian-specific
> > > > sonames is fine, personally), I think that having libxul provide a virtual
> > > > package to use in dependencies is the best option (whether that's
> > > > gecko-x.y-serial, or libxul1debianX, makes no real difference).

> > > Will all the tools resolving the dependencies be fine with a dependency
> > > on a virtual package without one an a real package ? (like for
> > > zlib1g-dev | libz-dev)

> > Yes.  See apt's Provides for an example of this.

> So why do we keep providing transition packages, then ?

What transition packages do you mean?  If you mean, "why don't we use
Provides: instead of transition packages?", the answer is that apt will
never automatically replace a real package with a virtual one on upgrades.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon at debian.org                                   http://www.debian.org/
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