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

[David Zeuthen]

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