Comment 32 for bug 192992

It's because the preinst script in python-apt 0.7.4ubuntu5 has:

[python-package]
format = 1
python-version = python:Versions=2.4

and then /usr/bin/pycentral has @ line 1028

version_field = pkgconfig.get('python-package', 'python-version')
requested = pyversions.requested_versions_for_runtime(version_field, version_only=True)

and this ultimately calls parse_versions in /usr/share/pycentral-data/pyversions.py @ line 28,
and this expects a string of the form ">=|<=|<<|= d.d", so it breaks.

I "fixed" the issue with:

--- /root/pyversions.py 2008-02-19 01:34:19.000000000 +0000
+++ pyversions.py 2008-02-19 01:57:42.000000000 +0000
@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@
                   '>=': operator.ge, '<=': operator.le,
                   '<<': operator.lt
                   }
+ vstring = vstring.replace('python:Versions=','')
     vinfo = {}
     exact_versions = set([])
     version_range = set(supported_versions(version_only=True))

i.e. stripping off the unexpected python:Versions string.

Although what the correct fix is, I've no clue.