Re: Versioning unversioned packages

[Taylor R Campbell <campbell+netbsd-tech-pkg%mumble.net@localhost>]

   Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2016 13:13:07 +0100
   From: Gavan Fantom <gavan%coolfactor.org@localhost>

      - What do we then do if upstream makes a formal release? How will 
   version comparisons be affected if we switch from this format to 
   pkgname-1.0?

In Debian, there is an additional optional component to each version
number which is called an `epoch', and represents a version for the
package's version numbering scheme.  E.g., if you first went with
prerelease dates, you might use

foo-20160610
foo-20160613
...

Then when upstream makes a real release, say 0.1, you set the epoch to
1 by a prefix of `1!':

foo-1!0.1
foo-1!0.2
foo-1!1.0
foo-1!1.2
foo-1!1.3
...

These versions are all considered newer than those with no epoch,
interpreted as epoch 0.  Then, when upstream decides that they really
wanted a longer version number and they release what would have been
1.4 as 0.1.4 instead, you can increment the epoch:

foo-2!0.1.4

And so on.

Maybe we should adopt something like that?