Alternative Version implementation

[Stephane Epardaud]

On 23/03/16 21:23, David M. Lloyd wrote:
> Maven on the other hand does not really have a specification, so I
> just referred to of existing examples and they seem to function as
> expected.

Actually, having had to recently switch our internal version comparator
to be compatible with Maven, we did find a "spec":
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVENOLD/Versioning

Note that it is a bit important to be compatible with this version
ordering as this is what defined how Maven resolves which version is
newer in case of conflict and users "expect" us to figure out that
"1.GA" is newer than "1.RC" despite the alphabetical ordering pointing
the other way. For better or worse, this is what people expect now :(