It's not a random suffix. The change from polyml-svn to polyml-fixes-git incorporates two changes: firstly, naming the package more accurately (polyml-fixes rather than polyml) because this package tracks the "bug fixes to last release" upstream; secondly, switching to git rather than svn. A separate polyml-git package could track the "latest development version" upstream. These different packages represent a real choice by the user as to whether they want a stable or latest (possibly broken) version of polyml.