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Date:      Wed, 13 May 2015 13:07:55 +0100
From:      "Simon L. B. Nielsen" <simon@qxnitro.org>
To:        d@delphij.net
Cc:        Mathieu Arnold <mat@freebsd.org>, Xin LI <delphij@freebsd.org>, ports-committers@freebsd.org,  svn-ports-all@freebsd.org, svn-ports-head@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: svn commit: r385864 - head/security/vuxml
Message-ID:  <CAC8HS2EgwR6nwBH-mpgyUhzA5wOA6C-QGZDJALMFd2ZN6gQDDg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <55510974.1090703@delphij.net>
References:  <201505090820.t498Kj6Q040594@svn.freebsd.org> <CAC8HS2EgyUuYP6Aumd6L%2Bre__SGH2wPwbHoJVJ_mR9dHhoRk-w@mail.gmail.com> <5550F113.1090306@delphij.net> <DC76BD292E0930458973D2DD@ogg.in.absolight.net> <55510974.1090703@delphij.net>

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On 11 May 2015 at 20:56, Xin Li <delphij@delphij.net> wrote:
> Well, what I have overlooked is that * means "infinitely small"
> (arguably, * is a poor symbol for that meaning, but it was in the
> documentations for quite some time), not "any" (as one would expect)
> in the ports' version numbering system.
>
> In our system:
>
> * < 0
> * < a1
> * < r1
>
> While, e.g.:
>
> a1 < 0
> a1 < r1
> r1 < 0
>
> I also attempted some alternatives, but they failed:
>
> 2.* < 2.a1
> 2 > 2.a1
> 2 = 2.0
>
> Basically, 0 have the same meaning of what we expect in normal
> numbering system, while we added additional concept like a, r (both <
> 0), and in order to catch these new concepts, we invented * and lived
> with that for a decade.
>
> I don't see a easy solution here, unfortunately: we can't simply
> remove the a, r concepts because some software vendors don't issue
> formal release for very long time, and we really need some symbols to
> represent <0 numbers.

I agree it can certainly be confusing, but fixing probably worse right
now... and yes, software developers use very interesting versioning
schemes...

Perhaps a workaround can be for future entries to suggest discourage
use of "*", unless really needed, to reduce confusion? I suspect a
number of the old entries could work with .0, but going back now and
finding out is a lot of not very useful work.

-- 
Simon L. B. Nielsen



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