Michael Stone <mst...@debian.org> writes: > On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 01:38:53PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
>>> Another way to think of it is that the epoch should really be evaluated >>> as part of the package name rather than the version string--it's >>> basically a mechanism to avoid renaming a package for purely aesthetic >>> reasons. >> Well, it also has the function of getting rid of the old package and >> being part of the normal upgrade path. The latter is important. If >> the previous version had major data loss or security issues, >> introducing a new package with a different name doesn't have the >> semantics you want. > Well, epochs don't magically do that either. :) They certainly do? Or I'm missing your point. (To be clear, by "get rid of the old package" I mean "from the active Debian archive," not from everywhere it was ever installed.) > What I can't think of is cases where it wouldn't work to have a new > package plus a transition/cleanup package. Yes, true, that also works. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
