[Fedora-packaging] Compat packages

[Denis]

On 03/23/2009 04:37 PM, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>> My opinion also. On that topic, should we do something about compat 
>> packages not explicitly named as such. For example, we ship 
>> gtksourceview and gtksourceview2. Shouldn't they be called 
>> 'compat-gtksourceview' and 'gtksourceview' respectively ?
>
>
> No. These are 2 different historic ways to having been applied to 
> introduce "compat packages".
>
> 1) Add "compat-*" packages
>
> 2) Use versioned package names "package<N>"
>
> Both approaches have pros and cons each.
>
> E.g.
> * compat-* package typically supply "backward compatible run-times". 
> They very often aim at "keeping users' applications" happy.
>
> * "package<N>" package often aim at "parallel installation", often 
> stemming from times when some underlying package has undergone major 
> API/ABI changes, while it's clients/users have not been updated to the 
> new version yet (classic example: gtk (gtk1) vs. gtk2).

To be honest, I fail to see the difference between both your cases 
above. Compat packages are also meant to be parallel installable (e.g. 
compat-gcc34), and "package<N>" also supply backward compatible 
run-times (as gtksourceview, used for example by dead-upstream 'scratchpad')