Bug#961272: apt: inconsistent pinning behaviour

[Sergio Gelato <sergio.gelato@astro.su.se>]

* Julian Andres Klode [2020-05-22 12:51:20 +0200]:
> > You have pinned all versions of these packages to the same priority - 10,
> > including the installed version. I'm wondering more why the other
> > packages are kept back, I'd expect them to be upgraded too.

Since they want to be upgraded to the version from backports, I assume they
depend on newer versions of some libraries.

> > What does policy say for them?

Apart from the different package name, the same as for the ones that were
going to be upgraded.

> FWIW, as you want to emulate hold, the correct approach to do
> that is to pin the installed version high:
> 
> Package: ...
> Pin: release a=now
> Pin-Priority: 1001

Thank you for the suggestion. I don't see any mention of "a=now" in
the apt_preferences(5) man page for buster.