Allow specifying version update mask using simplified syntax

[rominf]

Description

https://packit.dev/docs/configuration#version_update_mask is Python regex to filter upstream versions. In many cases, software use semantic versioning. In that case, it is possible to understand compatibility just from looking at the version (without the need of regular expressions). For example, Python packaging infrastructure leverage this fact: see hatch, poetry. I am not aware of the standard for version range specification, however it might exist. It would be great to have something similar as an additional option for version_update_mask.

Benefit

Simplify configuration, reduce boilerplate code, lower the entry level for packit users.

Importance

Somewhat important: the need of specifying regular expressions partially holds me back from using Packit for all possible branches (it's quite easy to mix up with them and it is not obvious how to check the correctness).

Workaround

• There is an existing workaround that can be used until this feature is implemented.

Participation

• I am willing to submit a pull request for this issue. (Packit team is happy to help!)

[nforro]

I can see that the packaging project supports version specifiers, so maybe we could add a new configuration key e.g. version_update_specifier or version_update_spec as an alternative to version_update_mask:

version_update_specifier: ~=1.0.0

Would that work?

[rominf]

Yes, your example looks good to me. Since SemVer doesn't contain compatible version range syntax specification, and there is apparently no widespread cross-language standard for this, relying on Python packaging looks good, since Packit (as Fedora infrastructure itself) so heavily relies on Python. Another popular option would be to have NPM style specifiers, but it is easier to implement just a single version — the one which comes from Python packaging.