Re: New package doesn't fix the problem in the old version
Raf Czlonka writes ("Re: New package doesn't fix the problem in the old version"):
> Hi Ian,
> > There is a third possibility which is that the maintainer has made a
> > judgement that this bug is not worth going to special effort to fix in
> > the package. Policy does not need to be involved.
>
> My point is exactly that: "who makes the call?".
The maintainer(s) of the package(s) in question. If you disagree and
care enough to escalate it, and you haven't managed to persuade the
maintainer, then debian-devel is available to give a second opinion
and if that's not sufficient for you, or doesn't reach consensus, the
Technical Committee is available to make a formal determination.
Note that when I say "haven't managed to persuade the maintainer", I
don't mean that you harangued them in a bug report, by (for example)
implying they're lazy. I mean that you had a reasonable and friendly
conversation where you make sure that the maintainer is aware of all
the relevant tradeoffs and consequences. You need to conduct this
conversation in a manner that doesn't presuppose that the maintainer
has no option but to do as you wish.
> It's not just about that package and that particular bug.
> Maybe there should be a clear policy, which should apply to all releases
> which are fully fledged (stable, testing, unstable[0]), on what is
> deemed to be called a bug fix - IMHO uninstall (purge rather) a package
> and install it again is not.
No, there shouldn't. Whether a transiently present bug needs special
action in current packages to fix it up, and how perfect that special
action needs to be, is not something we can or should write a single
simple policy for.
It's a tradeoff, of precisely the kind that we delegate to
maintainers.
> If we scale it (might be a bit far-fetched, but it really isn't IMHO)
> we get to the point where personal judgement and opinion takes
> precedence over everything else and is quite harmful[1].
If a person makes a wrong judgement, we have mechanisms to deal with
that. They may not be ideal, and I would like to see them improved,
but that doesn't mean that the right answer is to try to nail
everything down in policy.
Ian.
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