When should a package be ubuntu-versioned?

[Mike Bird]

On Mon, 2006-01-02 at 03:46, Ming Hua wrote:
> IMHO this should be done by backporting/forward-porting, mixing binary
> packages from different releases is just asking for trouble (let alone
> mixing Debian and Ubuntu packages).

Problems can arise, but usually it works.  Sometimes you need
multiple library versions but that's not a problem - this isn't
Windoze.  Testing will tell you what will work and what won't.

We've been mixing versions for years.  For example, zebra was
broken for several Redhat and Fedora releases so we carried the
version from RH7.2 through RH7.3, RH8.0, and RH9.  We skipped the
flaky FC1 and switched to quagga in FC2.

Heck, we're still using several RH7.1 packages in FC3 and FC4
installations.

Ubuntu hasn't been around as long, but we already have situations
which require a mix of Hoary, Breezy, and Dapper.  Plenty of other
people do too ... that's why pinning was implemented in apt!

--Mike Bird