generated version numbers could do with some work

The version numbers generated by autoppa have a few problems:

1. they compare less than any normal version number. e.g.
    >>> import apt_pkg
    >>> apt_pkg.InitSystem()
    >>> apt_pkg.VersionCompare('0.52-gutsy1-landscape1', '0.52-1')
    1

This means you can't produce an autoppa package for the same upstream version as has been shipped in a target distribution release.

2. when comparing version numbers depend on Ubuntu release code names maintaining lexical order. This has not been true in the past, and may not hold in the future:
    >>> apt_pkg.VersionCompare('0.52-gutsy1-landscape1', '0.52-warty1-landscape1')
    -16

We have perfectly good version numbers that are guaranteed to always increase, so they'd make a better choice.

I'd suggest that autoppa rewrite a version number like "X.Y-Z" to either "X.Y-Z-7.10" or "X.Y-Z-ubuntu7.10" for the gutsy release and similar for other releases.

So if the base distribution includes a package "2.0.6-1ubuntu1", I'd pass "2.0.6-1ubuntu2~jh1" or "2.0.7-0jh1" to autoppa (depending on whether it was a new 2.0.6 package or a 2.0.7 package), and it would generate version numbers like "2.0.6-1ubuntu2~jh1-7.10" or "2.0.7-0jh1-7.10". These packages compare less than "2.0.6-1ubuntu2" and "2.0.7-1" respectively, so don't cause upgrade problems.