On 1/23/22 10:04, Thomas Dickey wrote:
In #1003769, Andreas Metzler wrote:1. The upload introduces an epoch because the upstream version went from yyyymmdd to 2.0.yyyymmdd. Given that the new version scheme seems to have found acceptance in e.g. Fedora /I/ do not see a better way. Could you ask about the epoch on debian-devel (as per policy https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html#epochs-should-be-used-sparingly ) - TIA.As background, byacc was packaged by Dave Becket in 2005, switching to my ftp area as upstream. In doing that, the versioning of the package changed: from -- LaMont Jones <lamont@debian.org> Fri, 26 Nov 2004 18:49:09 -0700 byacc (1.9.1-1) unstable; urgency=low to -- Dave Beckett <dajobe@debian.org> Sun, 14 Aug 2005 10:14:12 +0100 byacc (20050505-1) unstable; urgency=low
I see no other way to correct this but to add an epoch.As we see in this case, switching from version numbers to date-based versions is dangerous because it's impossible to go back without an epoch. A better version would have been something like 1.9.1+20050505.
Lintian flags on this, but (according to the name and description) only for new packages:
https://lintian.debian.org/tags/new-package-uses-date-based-version-numberPersonally, I'd like to see that lintian check fire if the date-based versioning is new. That is, it should fire if the previous changelog entry did not have a date-based version.
Even better would be a dak (or whatever ftp-master tool is relevant) hard fail if going from non-date-based to date-based at the front of the version string.
-- Richard
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