[Pkg-db-devel] Bug#435122: Bug#435122: package renaming makes it hard to depend on a specific libdb-dev version

[Clint Adams]

On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 01:53:10PM +0200, Matthias Klose wrote:
>  - Changing the source name to an unversioned name will make it
>    impossible to build two sets of dbX.Y packages at the same time
>    (which is required for database updates between two versions).  An
>    upgrade from 4.6 to 4.7 with the same name scheme is impossible.  4.7
>    can change back its source package name to db4.7, but why change it
>    all for 4.6?

Another possibility is to fork off a db4.6 package (section oldlibs, no
-dev package) when db goes to 4.7.  That way the db4.6-util package will
still be available.

>  - It is hard to build depend on a specific libdb4.6-dev version.
>    Encoding something like 'libdb-dev (<< 4.7)' will break these
>    packages if libdb-dev is upgraded.  Please consider to provide a real
>    libdb4.6-dev package, plus a libdb-dev package, so packages do have
>    the choice for the build dependency.

The entire point was so that packages won't have the choice.

>  - libdb4.6++-dev depending on libdb-dev will break on upgrades, so
>    even for this reason, you need a libdb4.6-dev (or worse, a
>    libdb++-dev).

Alternately, libdb4.6++-dev could be renamed to libdb++-dev.

> The benefit to have a libdb-dev package is to make packaging simpler
> for packages not using transactions, but it makes it much harder for
> the other packages. Suggesting:
> 
>  - Rename the source package to db4.6.
> 
>  - Add a libdb4.6-dev package, with libdb-dev depending on
>    libdb4.6-dev.

This is barely any improvement over how db4.{2,3,4,5} are handled.