Would it work if, say, classpath built a new package 'jikes-with-classpath' (whatever the name, but a new one), which 'Replaces: jikes-classpath' and 'Conflicts: jikes-classpath' ? Classpath could then keep its version number, and upgrades should still happen automatically.No they wouldn't - AIUI you'd just sit on your stale jikes-classpath package until you made a conscious decision to install jikes-for-classpath (at which point the old jikes-classpath would be uninstalled).
You're right.One solution to this (which I found at http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-mentors@lists.debian.org/msg10605.html) would be to temporily make new (empty) versions of the jikes-* packages with priority extra, and that only depend on the new jikes-with-* packages. jikes-with-* would Replace and Provide jikes-*. Both jikes-* and jikes-with-* could be in the VM/runtime source package, so that jikes itself is not prevented from migrating, as planned.
This would take care of the automatic upgrade without the need of epochs, at the (temporary) cost of a few more packages. How long would the dummy packages need to stay?
Daniel