[gpsd-dev] version number proliferation, - considered harmful

[Greg Troxel]

Two related issues:

  The current version is 3.19-dev.  While I as a human parse that,
  packaging systems form package names that look like gpsd-3.19-dev.
  The problem is that other packages think - is an ok character to use
  in the package name.  And hence a packaging system that attempts to
  guess ends up in a mess.   This is a messy problem; ideally both
  package names and versions would not be allowed to contain -.

  The version number appears in 19 files in git.  It should be read at
  build time from one place.

To make it easier for people to 'make dist' and test packaging, I'd like
to cahnge the version to something less problematic but semantically
equivalent.

Options are:

  3.19~dev (which I am 99% sure gpsd used to do)

  3.18.70 (which aligns with very longstanding GNU notions that .80 and
  .90 are for alpha and beta leading up to the next release, so that the
  version numbers even of those sort correctly.

While I'm a fan of the second option, I suspect not many other people
are.

So:

  anybody else in favor of the second option?

  if not, any reason not to use ~ instead of -, to avoid the overused -?

If I hear nothing, I'll change to ~ after a while.