On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 09:58:39AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: > Here's a proposal that tries to implement that. Objections or seconds? > Someone may want to follow up with a patch to the devref to provide more > details about when to choose what form of a version number and how to use > ~ appropriately. > diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml > index ec1acee..acef23b 100644 > --- a/policy.sgml > +++ b/policy.sgml > @@ -849,36 +849,30 @@ > > <p> > In general, Debian packages should use the same version > - numbers as the upstream sources. > - </p> > - > - <p> > - However, in some cases where the upstream version number is > - based on a date (e.g., a development "snapshot" release) the > - package management system cannot handle these version > - numbers without epochs. For example, dpkg will consider > - "96May01" to be greater than "96Dec24". > + numbers as the upstream sources. However, upstream version > + numbers based on some date formats (sometimes used for > + development or "snapshot" releases) will not be ordered > + correctly by the package management software. For > + example, <prng>dpkg</prng> will consider "96May01" to be > + greater than "96Dec24". > </p> > > <p> > To prevent having to use epochs for every new upstream > - version, the date based portion of the version number > - should be changed to the following format in such cases: > - "19960501", "19961224". It is up to the maintainer whether > - they want to bother the upstream maintainer to change > - the version numbers upstream, too. > - </p> > - > - <p> > - Note that other version formats based on dates which are > - parsed correctly by the package management system should > - <em>not</em> be changed. > + version, the date-based portion of any upstream version number > + should be given in a way that sorts correctly: four-digit year > + first, followed by a two-digit numeric month, followed by a > + two-digit numeric date, possibly with punctuation between the > + components. > </p> > > <p> > - Native Debian packages (i.e., packages which have been > - written especially for Debian) whose version numbers include > - dates should always use the "YYYYMMDD" format. > + Native Debian packages (i.e., packages which have been written > + especially for Debian) whose version numbers include dates > + should also follow these rules. If punctuation is desired > + between the date components, remember that hyphen (<tt>-</tt>) > + cannot be used in native package versions. Period > + (<tt>.</tt>) is normally a good choice. > </p> > </sect1> Seconded. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/ slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
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