> > "Instead of the developers learning to treat certain versions as separate > > packages, the developers taught Portage how to handle and maintain several > > versions of the same package though the use of SLOTs." > > > > It goes on to explain further with an example, basically they have an > > extra field to differentiate between packages with the same name. > > rpm does this (using the version as the extra field) and it is a real PITA.
If it can be used to shut people up about "name mangling", it sounds like a good idea, after all. Or a "Realname" field, which contains a package name that is unmangled. (which is basically a Provides: field with versions). regards, junichi