Bug#620566: dpkg: "version number does not start with digit" is in contrast to policy

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Russ Allbery wrote:
> Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org> writes:

>> it's trivial to add a leading 0.
>
> We could recommend that explicitly if it would help.  It would be my
> recommendation even without the restriction on version numbers, since
> alphanumerics would sort after any numbers, so you'd need an epoch
> otherwise if upstream ever switched to more conventional versions.

Yes, that sounds good to me.

The remaining open question is how to deal with historical packages.
I personally would be happier if "dpkg" and higher-level tools did
not introduce incompatibilities with the historical format when it's
easy not to, since being able to install old packages to "bisect" an
old bug is very useful.  But I realize I might be in the minority.

(For example, old versions of badlands have version numbers starting
with "build".)

I am sympathetic to Guillem's view, which (if I understand correctly)
is that dpkg output is unfortunately trusted by some other programs
and that not preventing installation of packages with syntax problems
would in the long term create a buggy and unstable system.  Hopefully
he will chime in some time to explain whether the above concern about
using the packaging system with historical packages can be reconciled
with that (hint: I think so, and I think policy can help).