> The basic problem with most package managers is that they ignore the soname mechanism.
Well, there's a million hobby project package managers, so I'm sure many of them fall in to that category. But the big ones, the ones used by the vast majority of linux users, don't have a problem with this (deb and rpm-based distros commonly version their libraries and install multiple versions side-by-side). This is a pain in the ass for the package maintainers as a lot of software developers don't think about versioning their API, but it's great for users.
Well, there's a million hobby project package managers, so I'm sure many of them fall in to that category. But the big ones, the ones used by the vast majority of linux users, don't have a problem with this (deb and rpm-based distros commonly version their libraries and install multiple versions side-by-side). This is a pain in the ass for the package maintainers as a lot of software developers don't think about versioning their API, but it's great for users.