red5_2:
I noticed that cabal will parse, but ignore, version tags. For example, the two lines appear to be equivalent in how a package gets built:
Version: 1.1 Version: 1.1-alternate
Arguably this is not the right thing to do, as it changes the semantics of versions. For example, I can install version 1.1 of a package without replacing version 1.0, but if I try to install version 1.0-alternate, I will actually replace version 1.0.
I'm not against discarding version tags, but I'd like to know if there's a rationale for _silently_ discarding them.
Version tags are not supported by Cabal or Hackage or any of the Haskell tools, afaik. See the package version policy for the conventions we follow: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Package_versioning_policy