Bug#792853: debian-policy: please disallow colons in upstream_version
Hi!
On Sun, 2015-07-19 at 20:25:04 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org> writes:
> > So, in principle 2) and 3) are mostly problems in dpkg, 1) might be a
> > quite good indication that upstreams do not usually do this, and 4) a
> > very strong deterrent for them to do so.
>
> > I'm ambivalent on disallowing this in Debian, and even if policy ends
> > up disallowing it might still make sense to allow it in dpkg in case
> > someone outside Debian is using such thing (although I'm having a bit
> > of a hard time seeing this being used in practice).
>
> I feel like simplicity in our version numbering scheme is best. It's
> clear that no one is currently using this, and this message is the first
> time I recall it even coming up. That implies that we're not losing much
> (if anything) by not supporting this, even though we claimed it was
> supported.
>
> The simplest approach for Debian seems to be to just forbid colons in
> upstream version numbers. This also simplifies parsing mildly.
Right, makes sense. Although I wouldn't like for that regression in
dpkg to be used as a “fait accompli” argument.
> (Obviously, dpkg is free to be more generous, although it's convenient
> when dpkg aligns with Debian Policy in a way that doesn't require writing
> a separate Lintian rule.)
So I've decided I'll merge the fix for now, which can always be
reverted if Debian Policy forbids its usage, but in that case I'd
probably implement a proper staged deprecation process, with warnings
and all, to catch the possible but improbable external users.
Thanks,
Guillem
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