Bug#889814: lintian: Improve long description of epoch-change-without-comment

[Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>]

Hi!

On Wed, 2018-02-07 at 12:12:11 +0100, Raphaël Hertzog wrote:
> Package: lintian
> Version: 2.5.73
> Severity: wishlist

> It would be nice if the long description of epoch-change-without-comment
> could document when it's appropriate to bump the epoch and ways to avoid
> the epoch bump entirely.
> 
> I'm thinking of:
> 
> - upstream changed version numbering scheme in a way that makes the latest
>   version lower than the former one (i.e. switching from date-based
>   version to usual X.Y) => OK and that should really be the only reason
>   to use an epoch
> 
> - you want to revert to a lower version in unstable for a while => you
>   should rather use <last-version>+really<former-version> until you can
>   again upload the latest version.
> 
> Maybe others have more suggestions.

Yeahm, I wrote about this some time ago at:

  <https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2013/04/msg00203.html>

Also something I forgot to add there, but Clint Adams mentioned on a
later reply, is the problem with breaking any versioned dependency,
so that also needs careful review and a possible transition.

Thanks,
Guillem