Pending packages status

[Charles Wilson]

Christopher Faylor wrote:

>>>>>Pavel:
>>>>>:) It is not my personal preference, though it may seem like it is.

>>>>Max:
>>>>Ah, remembering the recent discussions, I think it *is* exactly your
>>>>preference :}.

>>Max:
>>Personally, I don't see why the 1st release of a package need be -1, and I
>>think that, in abstract, a version number should uniqely identify a version.
>>
>>On the other hand, I don't remember any confusion caused by the current
>>practice.

>cgf:
> I don't have strong feelings about this other than that I think it would
> be odd for the first release of a pacakge to be bushwa-1.10-15 and, given
> some of the packaging discussions here, that is entirely possible.  I like
> being able to look at an announcement and figuring out from the subject
> if this is a recent release or not.
> 
> Given that we haven't had any problems with starting out at 1, I think
> we should continue to work that way.

Yep, IIRC it *was* Pavel's personal preference.  It cetainly isn't mine. 
  I agree with Max: packages should be uniquely identified, to avoid 
confusion *during the prerelease phase*.  Imagine:

"Bob, there's a proplem with your foo-1.3.2-1 package"
"That's fixed in the third release of foo-1.3.2-1"
"Wait, Bob, I thought I was using the third release.  Are you sure?"
"Nope, you're right -- it's the *fourth* release that fixes the problem. 
  Here's the package md5sum..."
"Um, bob, I just downloaded foo-1.3.2-1 and it has md5sum xxxx.  Is that 
newer, or older than the mythical fourth release?"
"Yeah, sorry about that.  I gave you the md5sum of the fourth 
pre-release.  I expected that you would simply compare it to the md5sum 
of the package you've been complaining about (#3 ?).  However, you can't 
download the #3 nor #4 prereleases anymore. We're up to the sixth 
pre-release, and THAT is what you just downloaded..."

This is especially true in my case, since for autotool releases I tend 
to put them up on my website in setup-compatible form prior even to 
"test:" releases on the cygwin mirrors.  I *need* to keep pre-release 
and pre-test versions unique if there have been any changes in them. Or 
I'll hork off my testers...

As far as chris's comments go, he is right that we haven't yet had too 
many problems -- because most pre-release packages have not been 
"setup-installable". Thus, no problems (except for communication issues, 
as described above).

I expect that as the cygwin userbase grows(*) that both of these 
conditions will change. (*) And recent evidence on the mailing list 
suggests that the cygwin userbase IS growing.

--Chuck