Comment 1 for bug 818215

adapting uscan for use in launchpad could help here. it has a regexp based syntax and uses just the part within () as the version number.

that would also allow a friendlier answer to question 6635, as watch files allow for an index url to be explicitly specified.

compatibility-wise, either dual operation (the old system for filename style wildcards, uscan based for others) or replacing the wild cards (http://www.openafs.org/dl/openafs/1.4.*/openafs-1.4.*-src.tar.gz would become http://www.openafs.org/dl/openafs/(?1\.4\..*)/openafs-(1\.4\..*-src).tar.gz, where the original reporter would have to move the -src outside of the parentheses).