Re: version numbers

[Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net>]

John Hasler wrote:
> Chrony-1.1 is out and I've packaged it to replace chrony-1.02 only to find
> that dpkg claims that 1.1 < 1.02.  What should I do?

The authoritative answer to this question is in the packaging manual. It's
also quite amusing:

     Note that the purpose of epochs is to allow us to leave behind mistakes
     in version numbering, and to cope with situations where the version
     numbering changes. It is _not_ there to cope with version numbers
     containing strings of letters which dpkg' cannot interpret (such as
     ALPHA' or pre-'), or with silly orderings (the author of this manual
     has heard of a package whose versions went 1.1', 1.2', 1.3', 1', 2.1',
     2.2', 2' and so forth).

     If an upstream package has problematic version numbers they should be
     converted to a sane form for use in the Version' field.

-- 
see shy jo