software - multiple version installs (any distro developers here?)

[Tom]

On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 01:30:17PM +1000, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
> A major distro heading that way (e.g. Debian) might encourage developers
> to increase the configurability of their own software perhaps?

Developers != distro|package maintainers, and free software should be
portable and not distro specific. So, developers wouldn't have anything to
do here, only maintainers.

> Ahah! Yes so we need a new default packaging/ installation format to be
> supported by RPM and DPKG, to support the better way, e.g.:

https://xkcd.com/927/  :)

> So look into /var/lib/dpkg/info - that's heading for 9K files on my
> system - and this is a relatively fresh install (<12months)!
>
> That's not human friendly.

Because humans are not the intended audience for this stuff.
Use dpkg -l [| less or the like].
 
> The point is just multiple versions parallel installs, that's all.

There are already solutions for this, e.g. look at PC-BSDs packages.
Or use a container. Or compile yourself and set --prefix accordingly.
 
> Given my experience, your "nobody wants" is too broad by at least 1 :)
 
You're free to start a new project. Maybe others will join, maybe not.



best,
Tom