David Laight wrote...
A full wrap might catch checks for less than (say) 4.4.2 which might be present to avoid very early versions. So sticking at 255 or wrapping onto (say) 128 to 255 might be better.
Hitting such version checks still might happen, though.
Also, any wrapping introduces a real risk package managers will see version numbers running backwards and therefore will refrain from installing an actually newer version.
For scripts/package/builddeb (I don't use that, though), you could work around by setting an epoch, i.e. (untested)
-$sourcename ($packageversion) $distribution; urgency=low +$sourcename (1:$packageversion) $distribution; urgency=low
but every packaging mechanism in-tree and outside should adopt such a change, if even possible. Which is why this feels bad.
Possibly I am missing something: What's the reason to not use EXTRAVERSION as back in the old 2.6.x.y days, so change to 4.4.255.1 and so on? Well, unless there are still installations who treat 4.4.255 as 2.6.64.255.
Christoph