PPA copy package, gives error when copy to another series in the same ppa

as the message says: You can't copy packages in different series. Because the version of the packages are the same.

What you can do instead is copying the source package on your computer, change the version (simply adding ~lucid0 at the end in debian/control) and upload the source package to the target series of you ppa.

Or:

Create for every series a ppa and copy the packages with the same version between the ppa's, but I wouldn't do this ;)

Well, some times its possible, and sometimes it's not. Right now I have the same package built for hardy, karmic, lucid and maverick but jaunty gives me an error (bots-2.0.1-1ppa7); Drupal6-19 built for hardy, lucid and maverick.

What is the best practice / rational method to backport (or build from scratch) a package for several series? As long its possible you want to share the same source-package for all series (then the version number also should be same).

The method using separate ppas does not feel right, and the method renameing version i changelog feels clumsy also. When there is real changes made just for hardy then a version name containing ~hardy looks right to me. New versions without any changes could be confusing, wouldn't it?

Because the lead time are up to five to ten hours between your dput or copy and the package are published its important to find a best practice that is efficient. The drupal6 6.19 are for example a security release. If you add the launchpad lead time with your own lead time for each series / moment in the process it can take a week to publish a security patch. With wishful thinking you want to add building instructions in the debian-directory or have building recipes in launchpad for your source-package so just one dput would end up in published binarys for every listed series in the instruction when its possible.

At least copying these packages saves space on the ppa, too and I agree with your arguments! I never used that copy method to share packages in different series because everytime I reached a new series I needed to modify the debian/control at least..

Curious is that copying it to all series works except of jaunty. I hope someone else can help you and solve the problem with you!

Maybe recieps and daily builds are a solution for "best practice" to package for several releases from a single source-package?

 a) is it possible to do version names from changelog-file instead of 0+{revno}?

b) can a recipe contain uscan/uupdate, wget, bzr branch in rules-file (or other in debian-directory) or the reciepe its self?

Thanks Thomas-Karl Pietrowski, that solved my question.