XPost: linux.debian.bugs.dist

On Wed, Oct 04, 2017 at 03:30:37PM +0200, Mattia Rizzolo wrote:

Package: debian-policy
Version: 4.1.1.0

Policy § 5.6.11, after describing the meaning of the digits in the
policy version, reads:

| Thus only the first three components of the policy version are
| significant in the Standards-Version control field, and so either
| these three components or all four components may be specified. [5]

Now, I've only got the impressions that packages should avoid using the
4th digit in their Standards-Version field, as that number has no
meaning when it comes to normative stuff. I've seen on IRC/MLs all kind
of comments saying that the 4th digit should be avoided, and most
packages avoid it indeed, but this wording in the policy makes me feel
like it's pretty much the same.

While I agree with you, what are the practical negative effect of
putting the 4th digit in the Standards-Version field ?

Lintian could easily be made to flag it, but is it worth the trouble ?

Cheers,
--
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>

Imagine a large red swirl here.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

XPost: linux.debian.bugs.dist

Package: debian-policy
Version: 4.1.1.0

Policy § 5.6.11, after describing the meaning of the digits in the
policy version, reads:

| Thus only the first three components of the policy version are
| significant in the Standards-Version control field, and so either
| these three components or all four components may be specified. [5]


Now, I've only got the impressions that packages should avoid using the
4th digit in their Standards-Version field, as that number has no
meaning when it comes to normative stuff. I've seen on IRC/MLs all kind
of comments saying that the 4th digit should be avoided, and most
packages avoid it indeed, but this wording in the policy makes me feel
like it's pretty much the same.

--
regards,
Mattia Rizzolo

GPG Key: 66AE 2B4A FCCF 3F52 DA18 4D18 4B04 3FCD B944 4540 .''`.
more about me: https://mapreri.org : :' : Launchpad user: https://launchpad.net/~mapreri `. `'`
Debian QA page: https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=mattia `-

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iQIzBAEBCgAdFiEEi3hoeGwz5cZMTQpICBa54Yx2K60FAlnU4nUACgkQCBa54Yx2 K60aog/9EhZ7Rxq8CgYwyMbDZF3m8kgM6fFIwVXLi4fc9mkwjLYIfByUp+7tkQlA V0nvPOFQU9HRMeeEyd00svnbiiPLjeEBzPYAt9t2seFiMRgwW63Noet5ZyGF5CZj afnc3QDJbZO2j566yHry+pGcNdl6BJKV5r/MhFJngRBUKCzcee7vFGLuReKbWbmG mgIsfp8Grv+0TwsSdpVc9Vp5Kzob2eDDR1nUDmt/yzI5/8rQaRpl7C3dv/lfS48c 0t4Hklm/IDUhhORpV04AqtAqFBT15tp4Nrow0OA9wv53nUd2YtznZyBcLBlQG2kH UAmM+XesHNF28fEATKYn2BIeRsD9mwFKoUwhVUoIcax3qRSr4Z2dowBJnLzck97N b81ayrQ2Lyu2LR4ilAVhPF4D2GXnstoiM+jceIZknaI/lr5S53cq0OzqNJhWDa3T QNRcZEHhSQbQyuy3LA5J83r4tI+oqSQA0YIK/XK17SBePzuAcjOamc3JtV0mVVci QkF4Th+gmbD0Mw4lt69KyNhZ16I/nQ9Wmb3t0ZhmXe8hY12R7Qz

XPost: linux.debian.bugs.dist

On Wed, Oct 04, 2017 at 10:22:48AM -0700, Sean Whitton wrote:

Hello,

On Wed, Oct 04 2017, Jonathan Nieder wrote:

I include it because it makes it unambiguous which version of policy
the team referred to when preparing the package. Micro policy
releases are not supposed to change the normative stuff but sometimes
they clarify the text of normative sections and that context can be
useful for understanding whether a later clarification was taken into account in the packaging.

My feeling is that this is fine and that those comments on IRC/MLs are misguided. But I could easily be persuaded otherwise.

This seems like a reasonable use of all four digits.

I would like to reassign this to Lintian, which could say "did you
really mean to use all four?"

Doing that would be lead to the removal of four digits by maintainers
for all practical prupose. Nobody is going to add a lintian exception
for this. If four digits are fine, then lintian whould not warn against
them.

Cheers,
--
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>

Imagine a large red swirl here.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)