Subject: bug#37556: gpg "-unknown" version string

From: Kazuhiro Ito <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Oct 2019 23:59:20 +0900

> >>> I don't understand why making -unknown equivalent to a lesser version
> >>> makes sense.  Shouldn't 2.2.17 and 2.2.17-unknown in fact be equal?
> >>
> >> Should they?  2.2.17-pre and 2.2.17-alpha should be less than 2.2.17,
> >> but how do we know that -unknown isn't something -alpha-ish?
> >
> > It's "unknown", so it could be something opposite-of-alpha-ish too,
> > right?  On average, 0 seems right.
> 
> That's possible.  Does anybody know how usual these -unknown things are,
> and why they exist?

I don't know "why", but I described when the suffix was added in the
past post.

https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=35629#11

> GnuPG's autogen.sh makes "-unknown" suffix version configure script if
> source code directory doesn't have .git directory.

If you have the repository, autogen.sh can set an apropriate revision
number.  I guess "-unknown" version means "unknown version" literally,
because they couldn't decide the source code revision without
repository.

-- 
Kazuhiro Ito