[CentOS-devel] Confusing package versioning

Thu May 5 17:49:27 UTC 2011
Lamar Owen <lowen at pari.edu>

On Thursday, May 05, 2011 12:03:07 PM Karanbir Singh wrote:
> On 05/05/2011 04:58 PM, Ned Slider wrote:
> >>> 3. ntp-4.2.2p1-9.el5_3.2.src.rpm ==>    ntp-4.2.2p1-9.el5.centos.2.src.rpm
> >>> 4. ntp-4.2.2p1-9.el5_4.1.src.rpm ==>     ntp-4.2.2p1-9.el5.centos.1.src.rpm
> > Yes, and as a result CentOS released ntp-4.2.2p1-9.el5_4.1.src.rpm as
> > ntp-4.2.2p1-9.el5.centos.2.1.src.rpm because you couldn't release it
> > according to your versioning scheme because in this case it's broken.
[snip]
> Based on your assumption - we would never be able to do local fix's for 
> anything. Sit back and think it through. There is a clear reason to 
> create that .centos. differentiation.

I told someone else I was going to sleep on this reply, but, I think I'm pretty clear on what I'm saying....

Why could the package versioning not have been:
> 3. ntp-4.2.2p1-9.el5_3.2.src.rpm ==>    ntp-4.2.2p1-9.el5_3.centos.2.src.rpm
> 4. ntp-4.2.2p1-9.el5_4.1.src.rpm ==>     ntp-4.2.2p1-9.el5_4.centos.1.src.rpm
instead of what was chosen?

I think that's what Ned is talking about; adding the .centos. is appropriate, but giving a clear indication of which upstream source RPM is the origin of the modified source RPM is a good thing, no?  The fact that Ned is confused about the reason speaks volumes; I likewise, not really having been aware of this before, am confused why you would want to throw away (or relocate) the '_3' and '_4' in the modified source RPM's versioning.  And it has nothing, in my mind, to do with the EVR comparison; it has to do with being able to correlate the centos-modified source RPM with the upstream source RPM from which the centos version is derived.

Of course, I reserve the right to be wrong, but that's how I'm understanding the confusion at this juncture.  And Ned, please correct me if I've missed what you're saying.