Policy proposal for compatibility packages

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

Patrice Dumas wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 02, 2008 at 02:28:42PM -0500, Tom spot Callaway wrote:
>> - Third party applications which still depend on the old interface (that
>> the maintainer is aware of specifically, not "something might use it
>> someday")
> 
> That seems to me to be a perfect reason. Please don't try to force
> packagers to do something without reason. If a packager wants to invest
> time to maintain a compat package, let him do.

Well, one of the reasons we're making hoops for people to jump through
is that we don't want to clutter the distribution with compat packages.
This encourages upstream (and package maintainers) to just continue
using the compat packages, rather than porting to the new, improved ones.

This is why I think that this is a valid reason:

* Adobe ProprietaryDocumentFormat Reader needs this library to run.

And this is not:

* Something might use this old library someday, but I can't cite any
example.

~spot