Bug#1143016: libcamlp-streams-ocaml shouldn't have a -dev subpackage

Kate <[email protected]> Wed, 29 Jul 2026 17:25:11 +0100
Newsgroups gmane.linux.debian.devel.ocaml
Message-ID <f9690d16-15d9-4550-9d70-878ed0b0ad0a__4207.51685030467$1785345457$gmane$org@exn.st>
Package: libcamlp-streams-ocaml
Version: 5.0.1-3

See 
https://github.com/ocaml/opam-repository/issues/27712#issuecomment-3422172661

Pure OCaml packages shouldn't be split between non-dev and dev 
subpackages. What makes sense for C-like libraries do not make any sense 
for pure OCaml libraries.

As-is, libcamlp-streams-ocaml only provides dynlink access, which is a 
rarely-used feature of OCaml overall. The vast majority of pure OCaml 
packages use the default static linking, only rare software such as 
ocsigenserver actually use dynlinking in that way. Trying to use this 
package for anything else will result in a failure because of the 
missing .cmi at the very least.

Of course, for non-pure packages such as ones containing C stubs what 
i'm saying here doesn't apply, although .so for C stubs are only really 
used by pure OCaml bytecode programs, so the use-case is limited.

If you really want to keep the dev/non-dev distinctions i'd implore you 
to consider moving *.cmi, *.cmxa, *.a and optionally *.cmx to the 
non-dev package, keeping only what's important for development (*.cmti 
*.mli etc) in the dev package.
This way the non-dev packages become actually useful and do not lead to 
a broken state for tools that read META files (virtually every OCaml 
build-systems) as well as the OCaml toplevel.

Thanks for your work,
Kate