On Sun, 20 Mar 2005, J Chapman Flack wrote:

> Remembering that, I wonder if there is some merit to an argument that not
> all changes need to entail a PKGREVISION bump ... and some way to reach a
> consensus on how to tell the changes that do from the changes that don't.

A PKGREVISION bump is generally warranted if:

- the installed files in the package change when all the default options are
  used (no matter what those files are);

- scripted installation handling changes in any way that would affect
  installed files' content or permissions;

- a DEPENDS value changes either by directly modifying the DEPENDS in the
  package Makefile, or a BUILDLINK_DEPENDS (but not BUILDLINK_RECOMMENDED!)
  is bumped thanks to ABI change.

There are corner case exceptions to these, but these are the general rules
we have followed to determine whether PKGREVISION bumping is necessary.

It's rather critical to have a front-and-center indicator of whether
installed files are different.  Otherwise, users having trouble with a
package will have a much more difficult time trying to communicate which
"version" of the package is in use.

(I also point out that tracking installed file changes, not dependency
changes, was the impetus for creating PKGREVISION in the first place; see
bsd.pkg.mk rev 1.866.)

-- 
-- Todd Vierling <tv@duh.org> <tv@pobox.com>