On Thu, Nov 26, 2020 at 10:32:20AM +0100, Paul Gevers wrote: > If I recall correctly, the issue with epoch's is not it's ugliness. #891216 doesn't come with any justification (except that they are often misunderstood and unneeded, which actually is a fine justification to ask before using but which is not a good justification against using them at all) and while both #891216 and https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/FAQ#Q:_What_are_version_epochs_and_why_and_when_are_they_needed.3F mention technical difficulties they both fail to describe them. The FAQ comes close when stating: "An epoch is both confusing to users and distracting as it clutters the version string, and technically problematic, and it's a permanent stigma denoting that someone along the chain messed up." to which I'd reply that 1.2.3+really0.1.2+GITXYZ+DFSG-1 is equally confusing and distracting and often also become a almost permanent stigma. The technical problems I'm are aware of are that a.) version numbers (with and without epoch) need to be unique, so if you had 0:2.0.0-1 you are not allowed to ever have 1:2.0.0-1 again. That's enforced by dak however. The other technical problem is that .deb filenames don't contain the epoch, which is a problem the archive (and the ecosystems aound) has a few hundred times already so tools and people cope with it already, eg: Package: bind9 Version: 1:9.11.5.P4+dfsg-5.1+deb10u2 Filename: pool/updates/main/b/bind9/bind9_9.11.5.P4+dfsg-5.1+deb10u2_amd64.deb (which btw I consider an ugly version number but hardly due to the "1:" but because of the rest.) So my conclusion is: try to avoid epochs (because they are forever) but use them if sensible. (-> if a package goes from 2.0 to 1.8.3 *maybe* an epoch can be avoided, but if a package goes from 42 to 0.23 I'd be very inclined to use an epoch.) - and in any case consult -devel@ and see what this lot has to say. -- cheers, Holger ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ holger@(debian|reproducible-builds|layer-acht).org ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ PGP fingerprint: B8BF 5413 7B09 D35C F026 FE9D 091A B856 069A AA1C ⠈⠳⣄ Stop saying that we are all in the same boat. We’re all in the same storm. But we’re not all in the same boat.
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