Dear fink developers,

Last spring, when we introduced versioned -pm packages (-pm560, -pm581, etc),
in many cases we created "placeholder" packages: a foo-pm package which
depends on the user's choice of foo-pm560, foo-pm581, etc.

These packages have created problems since then, particularly for users
upgrading from perl 5.6.0 to perl 5.8.1 (for example, during a 10.2 -> 10.3
upgrade), since the correct version of the -pm may no longer be installed.

So I propose a policy change: we should "deprecate" the placeholder packages,
and strive to eliminate them from the active fink trees within a few months.

One implication of this change is that any -pm package which depends on
a versioned -pm package must be versioned itself.  And it probably looks
like a big burden on package maintainers to maintain separate .info files
for multiple versions of a -pm package.  Happily, though, Dan Macks has
been working on an extension of the "Type" field in fink which will allow
us to create multiple versioned -pm packages from a single .info file.
This tool will help us put the new policy into practice.

I'm bringing this up now, searching for criticism or concensus, so that
we'll be ready to make the policy change once Dan's tools are in place
and documented.

Comments welcome.

  -- Dave


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