Revise the section discussing version numbers based on dates

State the important requirement (year, month, date, all numeric)
and confine the discussion just to the date portion of the version
number.  Don't require that Debian packages avoid punctuation in
the date, but caution against use of -.

diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml
index ec1acee6def797919866f16c2787c23cdaf5a072..acef23b47b10837d34bdf1d97a5dd692ac578fb0 100644 (file)
--- a/policy.sgml
+++ b/policy.sgml
@@ -849,36 +849,30 @@
 
          <p>
            In general, Debian packages should use the same version
-           numbers as the upstream sources.
-         </p>
-
-         <p>
-           However, in some cases where the upstream version number is
-           based on a date (e.g., a development "snapshot" release) the
-           package management system cannot handle these version
-           numbers without epochs. For example, dpkg will consider
-           "96May01" to be greater than "96Dec24".
+           numbers as the upstream sources.  However, upstream version
+           numbers based on some date formats (sometimes used for
+           development or "snapshot" releases) will not be ordered
+           correctly by the package management software.  For
+           example, <prng>dpkg</prng> will consider "96May01" to be
+           greater than "96Dec24".
          </p>
 
          <p>
            To prevent having to use epochs for every new upstream
-           version, the date based portion of the version number
-           should be changed to the following format in such cases:
-           "19960501", "19961224". It is up to the maintainer whether
-           they want to bother the upstream maintainer to change
-           the version numbers upstream, too.
-         </p>
-
-         <p>
-           Note that other version formats based on dates which are
-           parsed correctly by the package management system should
-           <em>not</em> be changed.
+           version, the date-based portion of any upstream version number
+           should be given in a way that sorts correctly: four-digit year
+           first, followed by a two-digit numeric month, followed by a
+           two-digit numeric date, possibly with punctuation between the
+           components.
          </p>
 
          <p>
-           Native Debian packages (i.e., packages which have been
-           written especially for Debian) whose version numbers include
-           dates should always use the "YYYYMMDD" format.
+           Native Debian packages (i.e., packages which have been written
+           especially for Debian) whose version numbers include dates
+           should also follow these rules.  If punctuation is desired
+           between the date components, remember that hyphen (<tt>-</tt>)
+           cannot be used in native package versions.  Period
+           (<tt>.</tt>) is normally a good choice.
          </p>
        </sect1>