Hi! On Tue, 2026-05-05 at 22:19:17 +0100, Simon McVittie wrote: > On Tue, 05 May 2026 at 22:07:34 +0100, Ian Jackson wrote: > > + <p> > > + When upstream doesn't make numbered releases, > > + consider starting the upstream part of the version number > > + (as used in the Debian) with <tt>0.x</tt>. > > + That way if upstream start making conventional releases, > > + an epoch won't be necessary. > > + </p>
For some reason I thought this was already documented somewhere, but if it is, I cannot find it in either the Debian Policy or the Developer's Reference. But in any case I think something like this should be documented, yes. > Won't this do the wrong thing when the "0.20260505" snapshot is > superseded by upstream release 0.1 or similar? Upstreams don't > always start numbering from 1.0, especially if they're using > "semver" where 0.x releases have special semantics. > > In some of my packages where the upstream has not yet made any > releases (like src:openjk) I've used a version like 0~20260505, > which avoids that. I think 0~YYYYMMDD is the right pattern, because 0 sorts lower than 0.0 for example. > I've also seen ~20260505 suggested, but I think that breaks the > least-astonishment rule that a version number should usually start > with a number. But this one is not, because a version should start with a digit (according to the Debian Policy and deb-version(7)), and otherwise at least dpkg will emit warnings on these versions, but other tools might outright reject them. Thanks, Guillem
