Re: Add Debian revision number standards to policy?

[Loïc Minier <lool+debian@via.ecp.fr>]

On Mon, Nov 21, 2005, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
> Since common practice for NMU, binNMU and security versions are
> flawed, as in they don't sort right with dpkg --compare-versions, I
> would rather see a new scheme be made policy.
> Currently versions sort the following way:
> 1.2-3
> 1.2-3sarge1
> 1.2-3.0.1
> 1.2-3.1

 That's one sample of versions: package, "security upload", binNMU, NMU,
 let me show you another one:
 1.2-3
 1.2-3.1
 1.2-3.1sarge1
 1.2-3.1sarge1.0.1
 ... where one could read versions for: package, NMU, "security upload"
 of the NMU, binNMU of that security upload.

 I believe one can compose and branch version stanzas as one prefers to,
 and Ubuntu can re-branch versions from any Debian version, and any
 version can be NMUed or binNMUed.

 I'd rather see something in the lines of:
 "1/ Package versions usually have no dots, except for NMUs and binNMUs."
 "2/ If you do a sourceful NMU of a package, the version should be of the
 form old-version.NMU-version except if old-version had a dot; in this
 case, you should increment the NMU part of the version and drop the
 rest"

 Also, I don't think security versions can easily be distinguished from
 a general "branching", so I'd prefer the functionality be described as
 such.

 I suppose all of this would best be described by examples, and BNF
 rules or regular expressions.

   2c,
-- 
Loïc Minier <lool@dooz.org>