[PROPOSED]: About versions based on dates
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Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
$Revision: 1.2 $
Copyright Notice
----------------
Copyright © 1998 by Manoj Srivastava.
You are given permission to redistribute this document and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
any later version.
On Debian GNU/Linux systems, the complete text of the GNU General
Public License can be found in `</usr/doc/copyright/GPL>'.
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1. Introduction
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Some time ago, there was a discussion on debian-policy about how
version numbers should be formatted if there are based on dates. The
following policy proposal is a compromise between the different ideas
that have been presented in the discussion.
This has been already presented to the list and had been accepted, but
Christian did not have time to actually edit the file.
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2. Proposed changes
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2.1. Change
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In general, Debian packages should use the same version numbers as the
upstream sources.
However, in some cases where the upstream version number is based on a
date (e.g., a development `snapshot' release) dpkg cannot handle these
version numbers currently, without epochs. For example, dpkg will
consider `96May01' to be greater than `96Dec24'.
To prevent having to use epochs for every new upstream version, the
version number should be changed to the following format in such
cases: `1996-05-01', `1996-12-24'. It is up to the maintainer whether
he/she wants to bother the upstream maintainer to change the version
numbers upstream, too.
Note, that other version formats based on dates which are parsed
correctly by dpkg should _NOT_ be changed.
Native Debian packages (i.e., packages which have been written
especially for Debian) whose version numbers include dates should
always use the `YYYY-MM-DD' format.
I am now looking for seconds for this proposal.
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[PROPOSED]: About versions based on dates
Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> $Revision: 1.2 $
--
Halley's Comet: It came, we saw, we drank.
Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/>
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