Doesn't a new version replace the previous one?

[Quentin Spencer]

Jeffrey C. Ollie wrote:

>On Thu, 2005-06-23 at 08:46 -0400, seth vidal wrote:
>  
>
>>On Thu, 2005-06-23 at 14:18 +0200, Christian Jodar wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>Is that an expected behaviour to have all of
>>>the built version in the repository? Should I do something to clean up
>>>previous versions?
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>They probably should but they don't always.
>>
>>Mostly due to the lack of a program being run to prune them out. I've
>>got the program and we run it from time to time - but I think there's
>>some dispute over whether it should be run everytime or not.
>>    
>>
>
>I personally think that some number of older builds should be kept in
>the repository.  Perhaps keeping an older build for 7-14 days after a
>newer build is released would work well without using up too much disk
>space.  That way it's easier to revert to an older version of a recently
>released package.  Packages that haven't changed recently would only
>have the latest version in the repository.
>
>Jeff
>  
>

Another situation where old packages can be removed is prior to release.
I have had situations where I fix two bugs in one day (or three
yesterday, in the case of octave) and end up with multiple builds being
released at the same time. The "old" builds need not be released, but
the way the system works right now they end up getting released anyway.
I would say generally old releases could be cleaned out pretty quickly.
The exception would be kernel modules, if they ever get into Extras,
since kernels are one thing I tend to keep old versions of.

-Quentin