Re: epoch fix?

[Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>]

On Tue, May 07, 2013 at 10:19:18PM +0000, Thorsten Glaser wrote:
> Matt Zagrabelny <mzagrabe <at> d.umn.edu> writes:
> > Use the mechanism of "really":
> 
> That is *much* *much* *much* *much* *much* *much* *much* *much* *much*
> *much* *much* *much* *much* *much* *much* *much* more ugly than epochs
> and actually a prime example of why we *want* them.

One reason why epochs are somewhat dangerous when reverting to a
previous version are that it's rather tempting to do this:

  1.0-1
  1.1-1
  1:1.0-1

Since the epoch isn't in the filenames, this results in a clash: which
foo_1.0-1.{dsc,debian.tar.gz} do you want?  Normally the Debian archive
prevents this, but I have seen cases where the original "1.0-1" was long
enough ago that it had forgotten about it; I've furthermore even seen
cases where the new foo_1.0.orig.tar.gz wasn't the same as the old one.
For me, this manifests as an inability to sync the new version
unmodified into Ubuntu, but there are doubtless other effects too.  It's
certainly extremely confusing.  The "really" scheme, ugly though it is,
is safer when going back to earlier version numbers.

Epochs are still sensible when changing between entirely different
version numbering schemes.

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson@debian.org]