Bug#816515: Disallow (< ...) and (> ...) package relations

[Julien Cristau <jcristau@debian.org>]

On Wed, Mar  2, 2016 at 15:33:53 +0100, Jakub Wilk wrote:

> >The relations allowed are ‘<<’, ‘<=’, ‘=’, ‘>=’ and ‘>>’ for strictly
> >earlier, earlier or equal, exactly equal, later or equal and strictly
> >later, respectively. The deprecated forms ‘<’ and ‘>’ were confusingly
> >used to mean earlier/later or equal, rather than strictly earlier/later,
> >and must not appear in new packages (though ‘dpkg’ still supports them
> >with a warning).
> 
> So while the text doesn't say that ‘<’ and ‘>’ are allowed, it doesn't say
> they are forbidden in non-new packages either.
> 
> Can we do s/appear in new packages/be used/ to make it perfectly clear?
> 
I'm not sure what difference that makes.  Policy can't alter the past,
so existing source packages won't magically get fixed as a result of a
policy change?

Cheers,
Julien