[Fedora-packaging] Post-release tags

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On Wed, 2007-03-21 at 09:39 -0400, Fernando Nasser wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> We have for quite some time figured out what to do with pre-release 
> tags: 0.#.<tag>.#%{?dist}
> 
> But what to do with _post_-release tags?

>From http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/NamingGuidelines

"Post-release packages: Packages released after a "final" version. This
usually is due to a quick bugfix release, such as openssl-0.9.6b  or
gkrellm-2.1.7a. In this case, the non-numeric characters are permitted
in the Version: field. "


> Here is an example:
> 
> These upstream software releases its software from pre-release to final 
> like that:
> 
> 1_1_0_BETA
> 1_1_0_BETA1
> 1_1_0_BETA2
> 1_1_0_CR1
> 1_1_0_CR2
> 1_1_0_GA
> 
> So far so good, we use pre-release tags for all but the last, which we 
> call just '1.1.0'.
> 
> After the final release (GA- General Availability), the process goes on. 
>   After some fixes are added, they release:
> 
> 1_1_0_CP1
> 1_1_0_CP2
> 1_1_0_CP3
> 
> So I thought we could just add one decimal point: .1, .2 and .3 for the 
> above.

Two methods come to mind:

1. Just increment the release and ignore the post release tagging, e.g.

foo-1.1.0-0.1.BETA
foo-1.1.0-0.2.BETA1
foo-1.1.0-0.3.BETA2
foo-1.1.0-0.4.CR1
foo-1.1.0-0.5.CR2
foo-1.1.0-1 (is actually GA)
foo-1.1.0-2 (is actually CP1)
foo-1.1.0-3 (is actually CP2)
foo-1.1.0-4 (is actually CP3)
foo-1.1.0-5 (is actually SP1)
foo-1.1.0-6 (is actually SP1_CP1)


2. Use the post release tag like a CVS/SVN checkout tag:

foo-1.1.0-0.1.BETA
foo-1.1.0-0.2.BETA1
foo-1.1.0-0.3.BETA2
foo-1.1.0-0.4.CR1
foo-1.1.0-0.5.CR2
foo-1.1.0-1 (is actually GA)
foo-1.1.0-2.CP1
foo-1.1.0-3.CP2
foo-1.1.0-4.CP3
foo-1.1.0-5.SP1
foo-1.1.0-6.SP1_CP1

I prefer option 1, as I suspect that users might care when something is
in beta/pre-release, but don't care at all about post-release levels as
long as it works. Either way works. The latter mechanism is a logical
extension of CVS/SVN release naming, but it introduces icky underscores
and makes the n-v-r longer (for what benefit)?

~spot