Should PPAs be forced to specify a ~ppa1 or similar in the package version?

[Matthias Klose]

On 02.04.2011 15:56, Scott Ritchie wrote:
> This has long been "good practice" for a variety of reasons
> 
> 1) Independent PPA packages of new upstream versions can be
> automatically replaced when a proper distro update occurs.
> 2) If the PPA package itself gets promoted to the archive, it can be
> replaced by just dropping the ~ppa
> 3) It makes the version string more meaningful, as it prevents the
> possibility of an official and PPA package having the same version
> 4) If you are branching foo-0ubuntu1 and need multiple iterations you
> now have a proper number to increment without implying you've rebased
> off foo-0ubuntu2.
> 
> Making such a change would have other value:
> 
> 1) It makes it much easier to detect nonstandard packages on a system.
> This can be done with automated tools too without fear of false
> positives (in bug reports, with apport, with update manager, etc)
> 2) If all PPA packages were so branded, it would be much easier to
> implement a "remove all PPA packages" type of feature.

PPA's are used to prepare uploads for the distribution too. In this case you
don't want to have a ~ppaN suffix.