[This mail is part of Debian Policy Weekly issue #5]
Topic 15: Package versions based on dates
STATE: APPROVAL
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.
If everyone agrees with this text, I suggest that it's added to the
Packaging Manual.
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 (i.e., 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: `96-05-01', `96-12-24', and starting with the year
2000 `2000-12-24'.
Note, that other version formats based on dates which are parsed
correctly by dpkg should _NOT_ be changed.
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