Version comparison and build-skipping is broken

[hsanjuan]

Before: the list of releases in version could be updated and the build script would build what is needed to be built according to versions if it was not already available in dist.ipfs.io

Now: if the version file is updated to, for example, cleanup older version or remove older rc releases that should not be published anymore, the comparison between the existing version file and the current file returns a wrong list of releases to build because it lists lines that are in a position that was not expected, regardless of whether they are already built or not.

This was done in 0e510b9 and later in 19448fd . It seems there is an assumption that version files are append-only, but it is not the case. The way it was done before (or not done) just worked.

@aschmahmann @olizilla

[olizilla]

A while back we stopped removing releases from the versions list for go-ipfs to simplify the job of seeing what has changed for automations that use it to check for new releases like https://github.com/ipfs/npm-go-ipfs/blob/master/.github/actions/check-for-go-ipfs-release/entrypoint.sh

Is removing old versions a feature that we want? I was kinda channeling the permaweb vibe and assumed we wouldn't do that.

[lidel]

cleanup older version or remove older rc releases that should not be published anymore
It seems there is an assumption that version files are append-only, but it is not the case.

@hsanjuan Why would we want to override history and remove old releases? Protecting users from known security issues?
In my experience removing packages breaks people's boxes when they do maintenance tasks involving re-installing the same version.

[hsanjuan]

I only remove release candidates. They take space. It may be that something is built by mistake, I don' t know... Just wanted to highlight behavior change.