ITP: libtool-devel, libtool-stable, libtool (wrappers)

[Christopher Faylor]

On Sun, Jan 13, 2002 at 01:31:02PM -0500, Charles Wilson wrote:
>Christopher Faylor wrote:
>>I don't see any reason to rename libtool-devel to libtool_devel, though.
>>It is only a problem when there is a number involved after the dash.
>>There are other packages which use dashes in their names.
>
>
>right -- and robert is (tentatively?) advocating a CHANGE in that -- 
>disallowing '-' within the pkgname field.  It looks like you, me, and 
>Corinna all prefer the status quo: dashes okay, and require parsing from 
>R to L, so that the final two '-' delimited fields (of N >= 3) are VER 
>and REL.

Ah.  I missed that.  Sorry.  I tend to phase out when we start long threads
arguing about minutia.  My bad.

I thought we were just saying that underscore and dash shouldn't default
to the same thing.  I've just gone back and reread the thread again and
see where Robert suggested that possibly we should always use underscore
in package names.

I, as always, come down on the side of the computer.  If the computer
has been able to parse the current tar files and has basically been
doing so for almost two years, I don't see any reason to mistrust its
ability to continue to do so.

It makes parsing easier, for sure, but we've already crossed that
Rubicon so I don't see any reason to be more restrictive -- especially
since we can't always control package naming.  Every bit of wiggle room
that we provide means that we don't have to be involved in a debate when
people want to provide a new package like, say, an "ace-of-penguins"
package.  This is DJ's program and it is available via Debian.

The only reason I see to use an underscore is when there is a number
involved.

cgf