Bug#850729: debian-policy: Documenting special version number suffixes

[Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>]

Hi!

On Mon, 2017-01-09 at 19:15:57 +0100, Christoph Biedl wrote:
> Package: debian-policy
> Severity: normal

> [
>   "version" is a horrible search term, hopefully I did not miss any
>   other report about this.
> ]

I think this is actually #542288? But I'll let the editors decide.

> Over time, several suffixes to version numbers have evolved to denote
> uploads outside the regular, incremental upload to unstable. In my
> opinion the policy should state these suffixes must not be used unless
> the particular condition is met, but are mandatory then. The main
> reason is several tools rely on these semantics and will likely result
> in unpredictable behaviour if the assumption does not hold.
> 
> So a proposal to add to "5.6.12 Version", perhaps as "5.6.12.1 Special
> suffixes to version numbers"
> 
> ==============================================================
> 
> There are several suffixes for special situations. Version numbers must
> end in the strings as below if and only if the given condition is met:
> 
> +nmu<num> Non-maintainer upload for native packages

I've actually changed my mind over this one since seconding #542288,
which I should probably unsecond. I think this is broken, and an NMU
of a native packages should instead convert the packages to non-native
and then use the normal non-native NMU versioning. See
<https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2013/02/msg00230.html> and the
surrounding sub-thread starting at
<https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2013/01/msg00650.html> for my
rationale.

> .<num>    Non-maintainer upload for non-native packages
> +b<num>   Binary NMU
> +deb<num1>u<num2>
>           Update in the given (num1) stable distribution, through
>           a stable security or a point release update.
> +wheezy<num>
>           Older form of the previous item.
> ~deb<num1>+<num2>
>           Backport to the given (num1) distribution.

This all pretty much describe current practice, so they seem fine.

> ==============================================================
> 
> The "+wheezy<num>" may be removed after EOL wheezy plus a long grace
> period, so perhaps in 2020.
> 
> Also, I wouldn't mind to document some suffixes used downstream,
> especially Ubuntu who have sometime "-u<num>"-ish. But I'm not aware
> of their schema in the details.

Thanks,
Guillem