On Thu, 24 Feb 2005, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Thu, Feb 24, 2005 at 02:23:48PM -0500, Elliot Lee wrote:
You're definitely right that there will always be some special cases, and we'll have to deal them on a one-by-one basis. In that particular special case, I'd prefer to use "1.0beta1" as the version.
But of course that sorts after "1.0", meaning that an epoch is required for the final release.
(Yup)
However, the existence of this special case above doesn't prove that epoch is bad or the wrong way to handle things. It's important to keep the users in mind - their package searching and updating lives would be made a lot easier if the Version: is as close to upstream whenever possible.
But epochs make it even more confusing for "the users", since they're a) arbitrary and b) mostly invisible.
That's a good point. At the same time, if epoch is used correctly, it will be used only to help rpm comparisons along, and in that case being invisible is a benefit.
It's sounding like most people are comfortable with a policy of "Use upstream version in Version:, unless rpm comparisons will get messed up, in which case you should munge the Release: using the guidelines given".
-- Elliot