Re: Pending packages status

[Charles Wilson <cwilson at ece dot gatech dot edu>]

Igor Pechtchanski wrote:

> IIRC, there was a suggestion of giving pre-release packages -0.* release
> numbers, and switching to -1 for the initial release...

Now, I can *live* with that (but not especially *like* it).  What about 
pre-test updated versions (after a package has been officially launched 
and is part of the dist)?  [Also, 'REL = 0.x' might break the generic 
package build script; I'm not sure]

Worse, my pretest versions of libtool are based on *different* CVS 
snapshots.  So they differ not only in REL, but also in VER, from the 
packages on the cygwin mirrors.

Yes, there are ways around even THAT.  Let VER change as it must, but 
make sure that all pre-test RELs are 0.x.  Then bump to -1,2,3,whatever 
when uploading to the cygwin mirrors.

But that seems like an awful lot of trouble, simply because a few people 
prefer (a) initial "official" packages start at REL=1, and (b) official 
packages progress in monotonic, uniform REL #s with no gaps.

IMO, that's simply insane -- no linux distribution does that.  You might 
see foo-1.3.2-2 in rawhide, followed by -4, then -9, and then -11 shows 
up in the next official Red Hat. Nobody complains.  And the post-release 
security fix for foo is -13, not -12.  Big Freaking Deal.

Oh, crap.  Are we in another interminable packaging debate?

--Chuck