libarchive vs. libtool

[Tim Kientzle]

Tim Kientzle wrote:
>   Log:
>   1) Use GNU libtool to build shared libraries on non-FreeBSD
>      systems (or on FreeBSD systems when using ports). 
>   2) Overhaul the versioning logic.  ....

Does anyone on this list think they understand libtool?

I've been talking to someone using Debian who is trying
to figure out why Debian produces a libarchive.so.1.2.36
and FreeBSD produces a libarchive.so.3 from the exact
same build system.

The discussion of version numbering in "info libtool"
is quite baffling.

Tim