Re: Bad version number based on date advice in policy?

[Josip Rodin <joy@srce.hr>]

[half-reposted]
On Sun, Nov 30, 2003 at 04:32:09PM +1100, Herbert Xu wrote:
> However, epochs are designed so that they only need to be shown where
> it is necessary to establish the aboslute order between two arbitrary
> version numbers.

Hiding epochs actually has adverse effects (I've seen several dependencies
get broken because the epoch was forgotten), so that's not a particularly
happy feature...

> Some may argue that such mutilations are only temporary.  Well I must
> say that in the contexts that I've seen it used, it is not obvious
> that their existence over the lifetime of a package will be
> significantly less compared to the that of an epoch if it were used.
> 
> In this particular instance, it is not obvious whether a package
> will spend most of its life as YYYYMMDD or X.Y until that switch
> has been made.

The policy should discuss this in any event, and then the developer can
make a decision depending on their circumstances.

-- 
     2. That which causes joy or happiness.