Bug#363389: apt: Explicit zero epoch in package version causes endless upgrading

[Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de>]

Max Bowsher <maxb1@ukf.net> writes:

> Package: apt
> Version: 0.6.43.3
> Severity: normal
>
> Usually, an epoch value is either absent, and so zero implicitly, or
> explicitly present and greater than zero.
> If a package version number includes an explicit epoch value of zero,
> apt-get misbehaves, considering the version present in the available
> download sources to be newer than the installed version, *despite* them
> being the exact same version!
>
> This causes the affected package to be reinstalled every time an
> 'apt-get upgrade' or 'apt-get dist-upgrade' is performed.
>
> Whilst there isn't any particularly reason for a package to include a
> zero epoch value explicitly, apt should handle such a situation
> gracefully.

There is if the upstream version contains a ':' temporarily and one
doesn't want to have to use an epoch of 1 for all times.

> This bug was discovered because mailman 0:2.1.7-2.1.8rc1-1 included an
> explicit zero epoch.
>
> Max.

MfG
        Goswin