I've just been looking at the way libtool is used by ActiveMQ-CPP, in anticipation of creating some Debian packages.
The parameters to -version-info are defined like this: current = 2 = current interface version revision = 1 = the revision of the library (binary compatibility is preserved across revisions) age = 2 = the difference between the newest and oldest interface that this library implements The numbers above (2:1:2) are the values used when building ActiveMQ-CPP. It appears that this is just the ActiveMQ-CPP version number - the libtool version-info has a completely different meaning. The second and third parameters may not be correct. Why? - Is 2.0 and 2.1 binary compatible? If no, then `current' must be incremented, just changing revision is not sufficient. - Setting `age = 2' implies that 2.x, 1.x and 0.x are all binary compatible. In other words, we are asserting that no function prototypes or struct definitions have changed between between the current version and version (current - age = 2 - 2 = 0 = 0.x). - For instance, if 1.x and 2.x are NOT binary compatible, age must be set to 0. http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual.html#Versioning It also appears that both -version-info and -release are used. This may not be necessary. Having a unique `release' for each release that breaks binary compatibility is a good idea. However, does 2.x.2 break binary compatibility with 2.x.1? If not, then release should just be 2.x instead of 2.x.2. It would be useful if you could have a look at the Debian Library Packaging Guide, particularly the section about choosing the package name and numbering conventions: http://www.netfort.gr.jp/~dancer/column/libpkg-guide/libpkg-guide.html#id250154 Here is the libtool command issued on my system when using make: /bin/sh ../../libtool --tag=CXX --mode=link g++ -ansi -pedantic -W -Wall -fPIC -fstrict-aliasing -Wstrict-aliasing=2 -Wno-long-long -g -O2 -version-info 2:1:2 -release 2.1.2 -o libactivemq-cpp.la -rpath /usr/lib activemq/core/libactivem q_cpp_la-ActiveMQConsumer.lo ...........
