Bug#620566: dpkg: "version number does not start with digit" is in contrast to policy
On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 20:07:57 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Julien Cristau <jcristau@debian.org> writes:
> > On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 05:03:47 +0200, Guillem Jover wrote:
>
> >> Well, while I generally agree dpkg does not need to be as strict as
> >> policy when it might make sense to be laxer outside Debian, in this
> >> case I don't see the point in allowing the version to start with an
> >> alphabetic character. This is an interface other software rely on, and
> >> expect it to be as specified, so making sure dpkg validates and
> >> disallows bogus values seems the correct thing to do.
>
> > I don't see the point in disallowing these versions in dpkg, they won't
> > cause any problem anywhere, they're just discouraged by policy... Maybe
> > we want dak to forbid them, but that's a different thing.
>
> I'm not a fan of having DAK reject things that Policy says are allowed.
> The primary purpose of Policy is to document the requirements for the
> Debian archive, so if the Debian archive doesn't allow something, Policy
> should say that. Otherwise, it's just confusing. Out-of-archive packages
> are always allowed (and sometimes expected) to ignore bits of Policy.
>
> I think we should either allow it or not allow it, but Policy and DAK
> should agree.
>
Agreed, dak should only reject these names if policy does. I have no
particular opinion on the policy change, I just think the dpkg change is
wrong.
Cheers,
Julien
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