Package: debian-policy Severity: normal [ "version" is a horrible search term, hopefully I did not miss any other report about this. ]
Hello,
Over time, several suffixes to version numbers have evolved to denote
uploads outside the regular, incremental upload to unstable. In my
opinion the policy should state these suffixes must not be used unless
the particular condition is met, but are mandatory then. The main
reason is several tools rely on these semantics and will likely result
in unpredictable behaviour if the assumption does not hold.
So a proposal to add to "5.6.12 Version", perhaps as "5.6.12.1 Special
suffixes to version numbers"
==============================================================
There are several suffixes for special situations. Version numbers must
end in the strings as below if and only if the given condition is met:
+nmu<num> Non-maintainer upload for native packages
.<num> Non-maintainer upload for non-native packages
+b<num> Binary NMU
+deb<num1>u<num2>
Update in the given (num1) stable distribution, through
a stable security or a point release update.
+wheezy<num>
Older form of the previous item.
~deb<num1>+<num2>
Backport to the given (num1) distribution.
==============================================================
The "+wheezy<num>" may be removed after EOL wheezy plus a long grace
period, so perhaps in 2020.
Also, I wouldn't mind to document some suffixes used downstream,
especially Ubuntu who have sometime "-u<num>"-ish. But I'm not aware
of their schema in the details.
Regards,
Christoph
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