~dfsg vs +dfsg

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On 11-08-20 at 08:29pm, IOhannes m zmölnig wrote:
> recently on debian-mentors@, i was asked why i would version a 
> dfsg-repackaged source package as "<version>~dfsg-1" (which is sorted 
> before "<version>-1"), rather than "<version>+dfsg-1" (which is sorted 
> after "<version>-1")
> 
> i thought long and hard, but in the end i couldn't come up with a good 
> answer, so i said "because this is what i am used to from 
> pkg-multimedia" (which is not a good reason per se)
> 
> the only possible reason i can think of, is that if upstream decides 
> to re-release a dfsg-compliant package under the same version, then 
> this would ease the migration process.
> is this it, or are there some deeper thoughts involved?

Yes, that is it (for me, at least).


> btw, i have also done some statistics based on the packages installed 
> on my laptop:
> 32 $(VER)+dfsg
> 28 $(VER)~dfsg
> 28 $(VER).dfsg
>  5 $(VER)dfsg
>  4 $(VER)-dfsg
> 
> so +dfsg and ~dfgs are quite on par (though .dfsg is as well, and it 
> seems almost everybody agrees that this is a bad idea; just like using 
> - -dfsg)

In my opinion it is not a battle between + and ~ but picking the right 
one for the specific situation:

If unavoidable (e.g. already released and then repackaged with parts 
stripped) then use +, else use ~.

(Quite possibly there are more to it than that, but I believe above 
covers the general cases).


 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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