[maemo-developers] Getting package with lower version into extras-testing

[From: Cornelius Hald]

Graham Cobb wrote:
> I think that the best way to support two ongoing streams (say, a stable stream 
> and a testing stream) is to give them two different package names.  This is 
> the way debian handles things like kde3 and kde4 or the various versions of 
> gcj.  This is particularly easy in Maemo because the user doesn't need to see 
> the package name directly if you set a display name.
> 
> So, I would create two new packages: conboy0.5 and conboy0.6 (or, if you 
> prefer, conboy-stable and conboy-testing).  The display names would be 
> something like "Conboy (stable version)" and "Conboy (testing version)".
> 
> You should specify Conflicts in the control file so that they can both install 
> the same files (assuming that you don't plan to support having both installed 
> at the same time).

Thanks Graham, I guess I´ll have to do it that way then. Only I still 
don´t really understand why. I mean, why is it not ok to just upload a 
package with a lower version number to extras-devel? I could then 
promote the stable one into extras-testing and the unstable one could 
remain in extras-devel.

Having to use package names like conboy-stable and conboy-testing seems 
a bit odd to me. We already got stable and unstable repositories, so why 
not just move stable versions to the stable repository and leave 
unstable packages in the unstable repository?

Probably I missed some important point, but right know I don´t see why 
it shouldn´t work like this.

>> On the summit someone was giving me the tip that I could prepend '1:' to
>> the version number. That way the autobuilder would think it's newer, but
>> the version number which is shown would remain the same.
> 
> No!  Unless I am very confused, using epochs is not a solution!  Once you use 
> an epoch, the version with the epoch is later than all versions without the 
> epoch.  So, if you have built 1:0.5.6 you will have to use version number 
> 1:0.6.0 to build the 0.6 version.  And if you do the same thing another day 
> you will have to increement the epochs again.  That is not what the epoch 
> mechanism is designed for: it is designed to fix version numbering mistakes 
> or changes.

Thanks for the clarification. I did it because I think (hope) that 
verison 0.5.6 will be the last update to the 0.5.x series and I just 
wanted to get it somehow through. Well, now I´ll have to live with the 
consequences ;)

> That sounds like a bug in the promotion interface: it should handle epochs 
> correctly.

I´ll file a bug then.

Thanks!
Conny