bump epoch, don't roll back versions (Was Re: why I'm using Ubuntu instead of Fedora ATM)

[Mike McGrath]

On 1/3/07, David Zeuthen <davidz at redhat.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-01-03 at 15:04 -0500, Jesse Keating wrote:
> > On Wednesday 03 January 2007 14:52, David Zeuthen wrote:
> > > Maybe I'm missing something or maybe I just don't get it, but how can
> > > rolling back version numbers *instead* of bumping another number (Epoch)
> > > ever be considered a solution? Have we done this before, and if so, what
> > > was the justification? Thanks.
> >
> > Yes, we've rolled back before.  I don't have specific examples, but it
> > happens.  We've also flat out removed packages introduced during test times.
> > Introducing epochs is ugly and will hang over the package forever, and every
> > effort should be made to avoid it.  Because we have the 'right' currently to
> > not worry much about going from T1 to T2 or T2 to T3 or T3 to final, we have
> > a way of preventing epoch.
>
> Sorry to sound non-constructive, but can we please stop breaking upgrade
> paths just because someone happens to think that "epochs is ugly" (left
> over packages is much less of a problem). I'd like to go even further
> and ask for our build system to enforce this rule. The justification is
> that it's only a number, and this practice is bordering introducing bugs
> by refactoring source code just because it's "less ugly" that way.
>
> Please tell me where I can file a bug (I'm not exactly sure, I used the
> vauge term "Build System" but is this in Bugzilla yet?) so this issue
> won't be forgotten. Thanks.
>
>       David
>
>

This probably belongs on fedora-devel

                -Mike