> And patching packages to train them to install in different locations can
> be a lot of work. For example, simply changing the library name can be
> easy, but what about numerous headers and numerous other shared files?
> They may need to be renamed or moved to their own directories to not
> conflict. This is could be a lot of work for just one single package

Good question. In Debian the library is split to several packages: one
contains the runtime shared library, other contains the headers and
other development files. The packages with developement files conflicts
with each other, but the runtime packages don't.

> Pkgsrc also provides a system called pkgviews. You can install packages
> many times -- each is stored to its own directory. I have used it some and
> it appears to work fine. Not all packages are available for pkgviews yet
> but many are. Give pkgsrc's pkgviews a try.

I looked briefly at the documentation and it seemed like a complicated
solution to a simple problem. It is designed to handle packages which are
not supposed to be installed together. But different versions of dynamic
libraries are designed to be installed together, that's why they have
version number embedded in filename, so they don't need to have each its
own directory.

Bye	Pavel