Package naming guidelines questions

[Jerry James]

In the section entitled, "Multiple packages with the same base name",
the package naming guidelines state that one package should use the
base name with no version, and all others should include the version
in their names.  I have two questions about this.

First, is the intent that the most recent version of the package be
the one with no version number, or is that left up to the
maintainer(s) to decide?  If the latter, and the maintainers decide to
make an older version be the one with no number, what should happen
when that package is retired?  I started thinking about this in
conjunction with the call for help with the Java guidelines.  We
currently have an "asm2" package, because there used to be an "asm"
package.  The name of the upstream project is just "asm", so the
"asm2" package is currently violating the naming guidelines.

Second, is the use of the word "compat" in the name, as in
"compat-libstdc++-33", considered mandatory, desirable, undesirable,
something else?  So, running with the previous example, should we
rename "asm2" to "compat-asm2" and make the upcoming "asm3" package be
named "asm"?  I remember some discussion of "compat" on this list, but
I don't see anything about it in the current guidelines.

Thanks,
-- 
Jerry James
http://loganjerry.googlepages.com/