>
> * 1.7.1 matches >1.7 (previously it did not)

This sounds like a straight up bug fix in the packaging module to me - the PEP 440 zero padding should apply to *all* checks, not just to equality checks, as you can't sensibly compare release segments with different numbers of elements.

OK. to be clear, I guess you really didn't follow the previous thread?

I specifically raised the concern over 1.7.1 not matching >1.7 (in the current implementation), but most people were arguing it was a logical interpretation of PEP440.

Marcus