Re: Question about packaging emacs 20.5a.

[Miles Bader <miles@ccs.mt.nec.co.jp>]

Rob Browning <rlb@cs.utexas.edu> writes:
> I don't really care too much either way, though I do recall something
> in the packaging manual about trying to avoid using epochs to handle
> "broken upstream version numbers".  It goes on to suggest that you
> should instead just mangle the version to something "reasonable".
> However, I could easily be convinced that "XXa -> XXb -> XX" is not a
> totally unreasonable upstream versioning order...

Are you sure you understand the emacs version numbering scheme?

Traditionally, it's been like `XX -> XXa -> XXb -> ... -> XX.1 -> XX.1a ...',
where the letter steps are versions with changes so minor that a new
`real' version number has been deemed unnecessary (the example usually
used is `packaging changes', for instance, changing the permissions on a
file in the distribution).

In this case, emacs-20.5a would probably be a very small change to
emacs-20.5 (no letter), and both would think they were version `20.5'
when unpacked or compiled.

Note that this usage is _different_ that that of most GNU packages that
use letter as suffixes in their version numbers (most of them use it to
mean `experimental release)'.

-Miles
-- 
Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra.  Suddenly it flips over,
pinning you underneath.  At night the ice weasels come.  --Nietzsche