Re: Debian doesn't have to be slower than time.
Quoting Matt Zimmerman (mdz@debian.org):
> On Mon, Feb 18, 2002 at 02:36:36AM +0100, Michael Neuffer wrote:
>
> > I believe that we must have:
> >
> > 1. a centralized source archive for the distribution.
> > This can only be done with CVS or something similar.
> > Maybe we could even use Bitkeeper for all I care.
> > Besides practical reasons, there are even legal ones
> > why we need this.
>
> We already have a centralized source archive: ftp-master. It contains the
> source for every package in the distribution (except for non-US, which will
> hopefully change soon).
>
> There are practical reasons why it is not necessarily useful to use CVS for
> this purpose.
Which are ?
> > 2. a build world mechanism
>
> How exactly is this different from a buildd, other than that (presumably) it
> would also build architecture-independent packages? The fact that you could
> trigger a rebuild of the entire system at once?
Actually it is more then only rebuilding everything at once.
It would do a multistage recompile to ensure that we build a clean system.
Look at gcc, it is a nice example on a small scale of how such things are done.
> What do you do with all of
> the things which don't build correctly, and the ones which build but are
> broken? Without the maintainer or someone willing to NMU, this doesn't get
> us anywhere.
I said this somewhere else before in this thread.
Logs of the compiles of the packages would be put online and
send to the maintainer who maintains the respective package
so that he can fix it und upload the fixes.
If a package does not build it will not be released.
Packages that need some special care like the Modula 3 compiler,
that can only bootstrap itself, of course need some exception
handling.
> Regardless, I don't think that simple recompiles of packages are what is
> causing Debian to release slowly. Woody certainly isn't waiting on
> recompiles.
It is certainly not the only thing at the moment, but it
effects by enforcing a better quality of the packages, that
a large number of bugs that are currently open and that get
opened every day, would not exist to begin with.
This would allow the developers to concentrate on more
important matters and drive the development forward.
Cheers
Mike
--
People often think of research as a form of development -- that it's
about doing exactly what you planned, doing it on time, and doing it
with resources that you said you'd use. But if you're going to do
that, you have to know what you are doing, and if you know what you
are doing, it isn't really research."
--Dave Liddle, The New Yorker, Feb. 23/Mar.2, 1998, p84
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