Re: file naming convention for debian package files (was: Re: dselect FTP method ...)

[Bill Mitchell <mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com>]

Richard Kettlewell  <richard@uk.geeks.org> said:

>I think the absence of a revision number is a good indicator of Debian
> specific packages anyway.

But is that what it indicates?  Might it not also indicate that the
package developer uses debian linux as his base, and he just chose
not to assign a debian revision number to his package, even though
it might also be picked up by and used on non-debian systems?

(
   IMHO, it'd be better for that package maintainer to have a base
   version number without a debian package revision number for the
   non-debian-specific package sources; and to add a debian revision
   number when he made the package debian-specific by adding debian.rules
   and the other debian packaging overhead files, and making whatever
   debian-specific changes the package might require.  That'd also provide
   a mechanism for making debian-specific changes in the package without
   twiddling the version number of the basic package.
)

If it might also indicate that, is it a _good_ indicator of a
Debian specific package?  Perhaps a convention that a revision
number of 0 indicates a debian-specific package and revision
numbers >0 [.. oops, considering the dpkg package versioning
thread, I should probably say "(>>0)" ;-) ..] indicate a source 
package debianized from more general sources.