I have also asked this question on debian-mentors; I thought I would get an opensuse perspective as well. I am working on packaging the Swiss Ephemeris. The Swiss Ephemeris uses a single directory to hold all its data. (Settable by the programmer, so a private directory can be used.) Call this directory the slush fund of data. I want to encourage different programs to share data in one big installed directory, so that different astrology programs do not all have their own private copies of this data. Which is the same. And a large user of space. The upstream has assured me that this data will always be downward compatable, so that if new data formats are ever introduced that old versions of the libraries can not read, new file names will be used for that data, so that old libraries will never try to open files that they can not understand. Any particular data file could be needed or not needed, installed or not installed depending on what is being done. Except for a few short files that should always be there, but they might need to be upgraded with new versions. My problem is: "What package should own the slush fund?" It should not be the library, because when the library upgrades most of the data does not become invalid. Would not want to delete and reinstall all the data at this point. Should not be the package for any particular file, because that package may not be needed hence not installed. Must I create one special essentially imortal package to own the "slush fund"? -- Paul Elliott 1(512)837-1096 pelliott@BlackPatchPanel.com PMB 181, 11900 Metric Blvd Suite J http://www.free.blackpatchpanel.com/pme/ Austin TX 78758-3117