it must be possible to have jogl1 & jogl2 installed at the same time.

e.g debian places all .so-files in the same directory. different programs will need different versions. you would simplify it greatly for us if everything was named libjogl2_*. likewise there would be no complaints if you did the same for the jar-files.

just ran into a hard to track down bug related to this, it found the jogl1-so's instead of jogl2 :/

thanks

Well, the .1 wasn't added automatically in that case. Rather the one who packaged OpenAL downstream modified the code. Since this would have to be done for each package system (redhat, ubuntu, gentoo, you name it) and each program using jogl, it would save a lot of collective effort if it was done once and for all, and no patches would have to be maintained (or fewer). As a bonus side-effect, people wouldn't come up with multiple solutions; this helps those who take one package and tries to hack it to work on another distribution.

Some packager tools would also benefit e.g. those that try to detect libraries; they can't easily detect major versions at the moment.