pisi/doc/package_versions.tex

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{article}

\title{P\.IS\.I Packages: Version Policy v0.2}
\date{\today}
\author{Eray \"Ozkural and T. Bar\i{}\c s Metin}


\begin{document}
\maketitle

\section*{Revision History}
\begin{itemize}
\item v0.1: Bar\i\c s Metin wrote the first version preparing the outline,
detailed Source Version Section, and started the Section on Release Number.
\item v0.2: Eray \"Ozkural wrote a detailed introduction, added
  explanations of release and build numbers, reorganized a bit.
\end{itemize}

\section{Introduction}

This document explains the \emph{version policy} that applies to 
P\.IS\.I packages. Classically, the issue of distinguishing source and
binary distributions unambiguously has not received a rigorous
treatment in the context of LINUX distributions. We have identified
several shortcomings of the usual practices of extending the original
version with suffixes and prefixes, colorfully illustrated in the
following common problems.

\begin{description}

\item[The problem of future downgrades]
The distribution chooses to use a previous version of the package in
the next release. There is no way to indicate this, so ad-hoc
solutions such as version prefixes are used. It is
impossible to denote a future dependency that requires at least this
distribution source release in this case, either.

\item[The problem of redundant distributions]
A trivial patch has been applied to the source. While few binary
packages have been affected by this change, all binary packages
built from the source are redistributed.

\item[The problem of underdetermined rebuilds]
There have been rapid changes in the system, and although no
changes have been made to the package source, a new binary 
distribution must be prepared.

\end{description}

We have devised a slightly new approach in order to alleviate these
problems. Our solution consists of encoding the history of source and
binary package developments in separate version strings we call release and
build numbers.

Since the source version is usually used by the users and developers
to identify software, we retain the notion of a source version in
P\.IS\.I as a convenience. 

In the following sections, we explain the components of our
versioning scheme.

\subsection{Source Version}

Source version is the version number provided by the
upstream maintainer of the source archive used in package. It must 
always be the same as the upstream version used.

\textbf{Example}: If the upstream archive name is
\emph{bash-3.0.tar.gz} the version number of the package is \emph{3.0}

\subsubsection{Version Suffixes}

There is a pre-defined list of suffixes a package version can
take.

\begin{itemize}
  \item \textbf{alpha} Source/Package is in alpha state
  \item \textbf{beta} Source/Package is in beta state
  \item \textbf{pre} Source/Pacgage passed the beta state but stable
    version is not relased yet.
  \item \textbf{rc} Source/Package is a release-candidate.
  \item \textbf{m} Source/Package is a milestone before stable version.
  \item \textbf{p} Source/Package is released and some patches are
    applied after the release. This is the patch level.
\end{itemize}

The suffix should be written after the special separator
character \textbf{\_}. And there must allways be a number after a
suffix. \textbf{Example}: packagename-1.0\_beta1

The basic order of the priorities for suffixes is:\newline
\emph{p $>$ (no suffix) $>$ m $>$ rc $>$ pre $>$ beta $>$ alpha}.

The scope of a source version string is global in the literal
sense. It shall not vary from repository to repository.

The support for these special suffixes as well as usual alphanumeric
version string ordering has been implemented in P\.IS\.I.

\section{Identifying Package Sources}

A P\.IS\.I source has three identity elements written under
\texttt{SOURCE} tag: name, source version, and source release number.
We usually say just version and release number/release instead of
source version and source release number, respectively. Name is available in
the \texttt{<Name>} tag. Version and release are available in the last
\texttt{<Update>} element of \texttt{<History>} tag of a \texttt{PSPEC}.

The name of a source package is constant throughout its revision
history. The version is the original version, given by its
programmers. Release is a positive integer.  Name and release 
is sufficient to uniquely identify a particular PISI source revision.
That is, version and release are independent.

\subsection{Release Number}

Release number is the number of the changes that are made to the
package source since the initial version in the distribution source. A
change can be a patch applied to the source archive, modification in
the actions.py, pspec.xml or any file in the source package
directory. This change is indicated in \texttt{<Update>} tags manually
by the package maintainer.

The initial release of a package is by default \texttt{1}. The release
number always increments by $1$ in each revision in the
\texttt{History}, even the slightest ones, but it never decrements.

The scope of the release number is a given distribution, regardless of
its version, e.g. Pardus.

In the future, PISI will have strict checks for release numbers.

\subsection{Dependency Specifications}

We allow a package to use both source version and release to identify
a particular version or a range of package versions.

\section{Identifying Binary packages}

A PISI binary package is produced from a PISI source package. It has a
name that is constant throughout the history of the source package,
and it inherits the source version and release number from the source
package. However, a binary package has in addition a binary build
number. Shortly, build number or just build. For each of the
architecture targets, e.g. particular binaries, it also has an
architecture tag.

A binary package is uniquely identified by its name, build number, and
architecture regardless of the source version.

\section{Build Number}

Similarly to source release number, binary build number is the number
of changes that are made to a binary package. By change, we mean any
bit change.  The existence of a change is tested by comparing the
cryptographic checksums in files.xml with those of the previous build, and the
build number is automatically determined by the P\.IS\.I build system.
The build number starts from $1$ as in release number, and increments
by one with each binary change.

The user never interferes with the build number himself. However, if
the user fails to provide the previous build, then a package without
a build number is built. A package without a build number is evaluated
on the basis of release number, which is guaranteed to exist.

The scope of a build number is a given distribution build environment
for a particular architecture, which may vary from repository to 
repository. Therefore, it is not used in dependency
specifications. However, the system does assume that a build of a  
given package and architecture is unique in a given repository.

\section{Package File Names}

A P\.IS\.I binary package file name contains all the components relevant
to its identification, separated by dashes:
\begin{verbatim}
  <binary name>-<source version>-<source release>-<binary build>.pisi
\end{verbatim}

\section{Future Work}

In the future, it may be necessary to extend the notion of release
number and build number to support branches and forks of a
distribution. A proposal was to have CVS-like branching, but it
was dismissed as unnecessary.

\end{document}