Re: post-release package update policy
ian@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) wrote on 25.10.95 in <[🔎] m0t85xH-0002bCC@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk>:
> I don't think we as the people developing the software need frozen
> snapshots. Having a stable tree where only bugfixes happened would be
> good.
One piece that's missing here is two-level debian package versions.
Currently, we have goodstuff-1.7-5 which may go in the stable tree. The
maintainer goes on to create goodstuff-1.7-6 for the bleeding-edge tree.
Now suddenly we find a serious bug in -5! What version number do we use
for the bug fix?
Consider instead that the current stable version would be
goodstuff-1.7-5.3, and the bleeding one goodstuff-1.7-6.1. Now the fix
will obviously be goodstuff-1.7-5.4.
How could that work? It would need a rule that once a package goes into
"stable", it's debian-major has to be incremented.
Compare to bugfixes foe 1.2.12 making 1.2.13 while some 1.3.x is the most
current kernel. (And remember that the upstream version number is not
something we can change.)
MfG Kai
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