Bug#2060: dpkg and depends on version again

[Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk>]

Erick Branderhorst writes ("Bug#2060: dpkg and depends on version again"):
> [...]   The ">" character is misleading and in practice it is
> interpretated by dpkg as ">=". I would suggest to change the syntax
> used in Depends/Conflict/Provides/Recommends/Suggest fields into a
> more intuitive way (Table 2).
>
> [...]
> However, changing this now will break almost every Debian
> installation. A way to prevent is is to prevent building new packages
> with Depends/Conflict/etc fields with "<" or ">" in it, and notify the
> maintainer to change this to "<=" or ">=". Installation rules should
> remain the same until no more packages have "<" or ">" in it. For
> consistency a "=" character should be allowed to indicate that the
> mentioned version is requested.

How about
 <= => for less/greater than or equal to
 << >> for strictly less/greater than
 <  >  for less/greater than or equal to (backwards compatibility,
         generates warning from dpkg-deb)
 =     for equal to
?

= is supported already.

Ian.