Sthu Deus wrote:
Thank You for Your time and answer, Camaleón:It is provided to allow mistakes in the version numbers of older versions of a package, and also a package's previous version numbering schemes, to be left behind.What does this mean? From other posts in the thread it is still not clear to me. If You can explain, please do so. Also what is epoch in this sense? I now time is measured in UNIX systems since the first system ran - it's obvious - a new great OS generation has started and till now rolls on. But what about the package epoch they use?
First, don't think of second or fifth (per http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/epoch) senses of "epoch"-- the _beginning_ of some period (the meaning used re Unix time). Think of the first or fourth senses--a _period_ of time. Then, think of a package version epoch as the period of time during which a coherent (i.e., ascending) sequence of version numbers is used. If such a period ends because, say because you issue a new version number that is lower than (and therefore seems older than) an older version number, a way to resolve the confusion is to declare that you have switched to using a new system of version numbers. The package version epoch number identifies in which system of version numbers a given version number reference is written. Daniel