libsndio SONAME?

I'm working on (finally...) updating the sndio Debian package to the
latest version, and have come across something curious. As of portable
release 1.3.0, part of the SO_LDFLAGS definition in
libsndio/Makefile.in is seemingly commented out:

SO_LDFLAGS = -shared #-Wl,-soname=libsndio.so.${MAJ}.${MIN}

(as opposed to:)

SO_LDFLAGS = -shared -Wl,-soname=libsndio.so.${MAJ}.${MIN}

Can anyone explain why this is? I believe I'll need to revert this
change in a local patch to comply with Debian policy in the new package
(they're very strict about libraries having their SONAMEs just so).

Thanks,
Peter