libyab.so

[clasqm]

Compiled programs will need to refer to libyab.so.xx

They could. But yab.hpkg will depend on libyab.hpkg so making my app depend on yab will get me access to the libyab file anyway. Same way you could, right now. make your app depend on yab-ide being present. It would not make sense, but it would work.

In fact, if you don't want to maintain so many packages, you might as well fold yab into yab-ide, then you have libyab.hpkg for people who only need to run compiled apps, and yab-ide for everybody else.plus the respective devel packages.

I don't know, it seems like we are creating unnecessary problems for ourselves.