Release tag conventions (Was: rpms/libnc-dap/devel libnc-dap.spec, 1.3, 1.4)

[Ville Skyttä]

On Fri, 2006-03-03 at 23:13 +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:

> And then I modify the fc3 package. What I did previously was to add .1 to
> the fc3 release such that I get
> 
> fc4:
> 2.fc4
> 
> fc3:
> 2.fc3.1
> 
> such that there is 2.fc3.1 < 2.fc4 for upgrades.
> 
> And if I remember well Ville gave me the trick,

Yes, I've been parroting it every now and then and I still think that
it's the best way to go in situations like the above.

>  and if I'm not wrong Spot 
> uses the %{?dist} tag to keep spec files in sync for all the branches...

Note that keeping the specfiles in sync is not enough, the packages must
also be built and shipped in order to provide working dist upgrade paths
at all times.  The big downside of this is updates shipped just for the
sake of bumping the release tag.

> This would also render the dist tag in release only informational.

Release is a tag whose value participates in rpm version comparisons, so
anything included in it can not be only informational.