Hi everyone, I am currently packaging "wcstools" <http://tdc-www.harvard.edu/software/wcstools/> for Debian. This is mainly a tool collection for use in astrophysics. However, it also contains a library "libwcs.a" that is used (mainly by copying the source) in a number of other projects in astrophysics, like
- sextracor <http://www.astromatic.net/software/sextractor> - ds9 <http://hea-www.harvard.edu/RD/ds9/> and others. The problem arises now that there is a package "wcslib" <http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/mcalabre/WCS/> which builds a library with the same name, but a different API. Both libraries have some common roots (?); however they are not exchangable (with some exceptions, ironically the wcstools package is one of them). wcslib is used in an increasing number of projects, like CPL by ESO <http://www.eso.org/sci/software/cpl/> and pywcs <https://trac.assembla.com/astrolib>. I have the impression that wcslib is going to be the standard for new projects (but in wcstools are still some features that are not in wcslib) As far as I found out, the wcstools library was not intended to be shared between packages; however it is useful to build it as a shared library and use it commonly between packages, and experience in Fedora Linux show that this approach is successfull. Since the packages have to be patched anyway to use an external library instead of the builtin (copied) sources, the library name is not so important. For this case, I had the idea to rename the library built with wcstools: * wcstools builds "libwcstools.a" and "libwcstools.so*" * wcslib builds "libwcs.a" and "libwcs.so*" It turned out that in 2009, Sergio Pascual had the same idea <http://www.redhat.com/archives/rhl-devel-list/2009-February/msg01112.html> for fedora, and there was the proposal to discuss this with the upstream authors as well as with the freedesktop mailing list. However, at this time the freedesktop discussion seemed not to take place, and the wcstools package was going to be removed in 2011 from fedora. What is the state of these libraries in the other distributions and would this proposal be a compromise where all could agree? Best regards Ole (Cc:ed are the authors of wcstools and wcslib and the Debian development mailing list) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4f117693.8040...@liska.ath.cx
