Package: packaging-manual
When a package uses a changed tarball (by removing some files from the
original one), this is usually indicated by adding a "+dfsg" or
"+repack" to the upstream version number.
This, however, may lead to a wrong version ordering of version numbers,
as seen in the "saods9" package:
The old package version is 7.5rc by upstream, which translates to
7.5~rc+repack for the (squeezed) debian orig tarball.
After that, upstream released a 7.5rc2, which would translate to
7.5~rc2+repack using the same rules.
However, they have the wrong order:
$ dpkg --compare-versions 7.5~rc+repack lt 7.5~rc2+repack && \
echo lt || echo ge
ge
dbkg is not to blame here, since this order is determined by the Debian
Policy, ยง 5.6.12.
IMO the policy should be changed here to handle the "+" differently
according to its common use: analogous to the "~" it should be sorted
before everything else, but /after/ the end of a part.
Best regards
Ole
