Bug#660924: package manager sees version 2.0.0-1 as "older" than version 1:1.1.13-0.0

[Fabian Greffrath]

Am 24.02.2012 06:59, schrieb James:
> Attempting to "divine" the underlying distinction between "Debian Multimedia"
> and "debian-multimedia", I came-up none the wiser.  Nor does the package
> description seem to offer any deeper insight.

In his response to your initial bug report #660814, the one that you 
took as motive for insulting him, Reinhard sent you a link to our Wiki 
that explains this very distinction. If you'd have read it, you'd know:
<http://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/FAQ#There_is_.27Debian_Multimedia_Maintainers.27_and_.27debian-multimedia.org.27._So_what.27s_the_difference.3F>

> So, yeah, using the name "debian", instead of "Debian" in the domain name
> probably threw me off a bit too.

In my (though limited) legal understanding the quoted passage 
restricts the use of the top-level domain "debian", e.g. debian.de or 
debian.co.uk. Nothing prevents you from randomly inserting the word 
"debian" into your TLD, e.g. debian-administration.org or debianforum.de.

> Hmm - but that still leaves me - naively, perhaps - expecting that the
> "epoch 1:" should not do that, or rather, that the package managers - synaptic,
> aptitude, and apt-get - should not do that.

No, the epoch is part of Debian's version number policy. It is 
perfectly alright for the package managers to consider it - it would 
be a severe bug if they didn't.

> Of course, whoever it is who actually created "1:1.1.13-0.0" isn't helping
> things any - still not providing a "version 2" package, some guy with a
> "debian.org" email address, who, as you say, is not actually the maintainer of
> the official "debian" package - not to be confused with the "Debian Multimedia
> Maintainers" who _are_ the official maintainers, but who don't have anything
> to do with those other guys at "debian-multimedia".

Yes, randomly adding an epoch to version numbers just to give your own 
package higher priority than the official one isn't really helpful, I 
agree.

But it's not *us* who did this, so there is nothing that *we* can do 
about it.  It's *you* who decided to install this very package from 
this repository. Now go read Reinhard's reply to your bug report again.

Furthermore, had you used "reportbug" to file the bug report (as 
recommended) it would have probably been sent to the corresponding 
package maintainer, not us.

> I find the package documentation to be still a bit confusing...

Agreed, I think d-m.o should explicitely state on their homepage that 
they provide an *unofficial repository*. Medibuntu has some nice 
statements on their homepage to make this clear. Additionally, the 
package descriptions should also mention that the package are 
unofficial. Maybe Christian Marillat reads this and eventually 
considers it...

  - Fabian