The "duplicity" package uses python's setuptools_scm module to substitute the package version in its own sources. For development versions that aren't tagged, setuptools_scm uses the format "$NEXT_VERSION.dev$N", where NEXT_VERSION is the guessed subsequent/future version, and $N is the commit distance from the last released version. This scheme doesn't work with rpm. AFAIK, for rpm we must use $NEXT_VERSION~$N instead to achieve the desired ordering: $CURRENT_VERSION <  $NEXT_VERSION~$N <  $NEXT_VERSION~$((N+1)) <  $NEXT_VERSION Unfortunately the ".dev" format is hard-coded in setuptools. Has anyone encountered this issue before? Is there a smart solution to modify setuptools' behavior, or some other trick? Regards Martin