Whatever the actual implementation for packaging, please, let's not end
up with the utterly infuriating problem I keep hitting everytime I am
unfortunate enough to have to try to load anything on linux (OK RedHat
in particular, but let's not quibble about inconsequentials) and get
told 'oh this depends on package
furble-unco-wibble_pre1.x86-k.bar.srpm'. Yeah? So what? Where is it?
What is a compatible version? Do I already have one?

When you're developing a package it doesn't matter much, but once the
package is disseminated a correct list of pointers to compatible
co-dependents is important. The act of 'publishing' a package ought to
include _insisting_ on all these things being correctly specified. I'd
imagine a decent database could be kept of dependencies in _both_
directions, so that if a newer release of something you depended upon
were stored, you (in either the sense of the author or the community at
large) will get warned.

Another annoyance would be the nonsensical dependence; you have to load
a umpteen gazillabyte package just for the logical equivalent of a
single header file.

tim
PS the ol' random sigliner gets it right again...

-- 
Tim Rowledge, tim at sumeru.stanford.edu, http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim
It wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought.  - Wilkes, 1949