>>>>> On Thu, 11 Aug 2016, James Le Cuirot wrote:

>> Have you asked Debian why they are doing that?

> I did find out but had since forgotten. Here it is:
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=380725#10

So they are aware of the issue since 10 years, but chose not to fix
it? Seriously, there's no good reason to dance to their tune then.

>> This looks like a bad hack. As you said above, it will confuse
>> ldconfig, unless some trickery with /lib vs /usr/lib is used.

> I wouldn't call it trickery. Here's what happens when you put it
> in /lib. I can't see anything wrong here?

> # cd /lib
> # ls -l libpcre.*
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     16 Jul 12 23:29 libpcre.so.1 -> libpcre.so.1.2.7
> -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 464960 Jul 12 23:29 libpcre.so.1.2.7
> # ln -s libpcre.so.1 libpcre.so.3
> # ls -l libpcre.*
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     16 Jul 12 23:29 libpcre.so.1 -> libpcre.so.1.2.7
> -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 464960 Jul 12 23:29 libpcre.so.1.2.7
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     12 Aug 11 11:01 libpcre.so.3 -> libpcre.so.1
> # ldconfig
> # ls -l libpcre.*
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     16 Jul 12 23:29 libpcre.so.1 -> libpcre.so.1.2.7
> -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 464960 Jul 12 23:29 libpcre.so.1.2.7
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     12 Aug 11 11:01 libpcre.so.3 -> libpcre.so.1

>> IMHO providing compatibility symlinks for proprietary binary-only
>> programs isn't the task of the libpcre package.

> I'm fine with putting it in libpcre-debian package as kentnl
> suggested.

I still think that the libpcre.so.3 compatibility link shouldn't be
installed in a generally visible location. Install it in a specific
directory instead, and start your binary with a wrapper which will
add that directory to LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

Ulrich