Ryan Hill wrote:
>> Richard Freeman wrote:
>>> I'm
>>> actually hard pressed to think of any unix-based software that uses
>>> the filename to store a mandatory file format versioning specifier
>>> of some kind.
> 
> $ ls /usr/lib


I was referring to a file FORMAT versioning scheme - not a file CONTENT 
versioning scheme.  The formats of all the files in /usr/lib are 
generally identical.  Where they vary it has nothing to do with their 
filenames.  The reason for the version in the filenames is that the 
content is versioned.

The dynamic linker doesn't need to consult the filename to figure out 
how to parse a shared object.  It only consults the filename to figure 
out which shared object is needed.  That is actually analogous to 
putting the package name/version in the ebuild filename.

In any case, I'm not trying to say that these issues absolutely prevent 
the adoption of GLEP 55.  It just leaves a sour taste in my mouth, and 
keeps nagging at me that there must be a better way.

I'd rather see the number of filename variations be kept to a minimum. 
Sure, if we were talking about a one-time change from ebuild to ebuild2 
and in five years a change to ebuild3 then that would be one thing.  It 
seems like we could be up to ebuild-kde4-3.2 in six months.

And I don't mean to suggest that I don't think that efforts would be 
made to keep things sensible.  It just seems like once we start down 
that road it will be hard to turn around if we don't like where we end up.