Re: libc6_2.0.7 release notes...

[Rob Browning <rlb@cs.utexas.edu>]

Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@datasync.com> writes:

> 	I actually like this. I still think that the aversion people
>  have for epochs is rather more than is warranted from the technical
>  objections (the mandatory longevity _is_ a technical objection), but
>  the -0 approach is elegant.

I mostly agree, but the argument that anything to the right of the
dash should only reflect *Debian* related revisions does hold some
water.

My final take on this is that I would have been happy using epochs,
but I can see that, in cases where we know that we're going to have a
recurring pattern in the upstream sources, it could be considered more
elegant to have a "mini" or "right-side" epoch that's somehow
distinguished from the "major" or "left-side" epoch.  The proposal
above accomplishes this, but in a slightly ugly fashion.

It might be a little nicer to just define a "right side" epoch.
Something like:

  2.0.7-1:alpha
  2.0.7-1:pre1
  etc.

So anything to the right of a : that's to the right of the - would be
the mini-epoch, and any package with a :foo at the end automatically
sorted as older than the same version of the package without the :X
(ignoring the debian revision).

(I'd rather use 2.0.7:pre1-1, but we can't because then something like
1:2-4 becomes ambiguous.)

Unfortunately this might require some major dpkg hackery akin to the
hassle we had introducing epochs in the first place, but it would IMO
be a "cleanish" solution to the problem.

I've probably overlooked something obvious, so flame away...

-- 
Rob Browning <rlb@cs.utexas.edu>
PGP fingerprint = E8 0E 0D 04 F5 21 A0 94  53 2B 97 F5 D6 4E 39 30


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