Hi, On Fri, Jan 11, 2008 at 01:21:03PM -0500, Barry deFreese wrote: > I struggle with (and I have asked the QA folks the same question): What > IS the criteria for package removal? > > If the packages has bugs and is dead upstream, who's responsibility is > it? To me (and I'm probably wrong here) a distribution is not > responsible for upstream development. In principle this is true. However, Debian is responsible for having proper packages in the archive. Our users expect this of us. When something is in the Debian archive, that version (which may be patched) will be of acceptable quality. If upstream is active, it's fine to send them all (non-packaging related) bug reports and let them fix the problems. However, if they are not so active, or non-existant, and an important bug is found, then it's the maintainer's duty to make sure the problem is solved. This can be done by fixing the bug, or by removing the package. So with a dead upstream, it is indeed the Debian maintainer's task to fix bugs (in the Debian package). In some cases, it's better to just fully take over upstream, and make new releases. In other cases, removing the package from the archive is the best solution (to a bug, not to the fact that upstream is dead; that needs no "solution", since it is no problem in itself). In short, "I'm not upstream" is no excuse for having a buggy package with your name on it in the archive. ;-) Thanks, Bas -- I encourage people to send encrypted e-mail (see http://www.gnupg.org). If you have problems reading my e-mail, use a better reader. Please send the central message of e-mails as plain text in the message body, not as HTML and definitely not as MS Word. Please do not use the MS Word format for attachments either. For more information, see http://pcbcn10.phys.rug.nl/e-mail.html
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