Re: Proposal for collaborative maintenance of packages
On Wed, 2005-12-28 at 20:44 -0500, Justin Pryzby wrote:
> > EG: My comp is on the net sometimes and sitting here idle.
> > I'd be happy if Debian used it occasionally to build binaries.
> > Where is the web page telling me how to advise Debian autobuilder
> > how to access my comp??
> That won't happen. Debian developers, by whatever definition, is
> accountable ethically if not legally for packages we distribute.
> AFAIK that is one reason why we distribute free software :)
> We're also responsible for not distributing malware in our packages,
> and, whereas I would love to have an absolute trust in the goodwill of
> mankind, I recognize that it isn't feasible to allow autobuilding on
> arbitrary hosts.
You assumed that ONE machine would be blindly trusted to build a
binary package. Did I say that?? :)
You'd want at least 3 to produce identical results, and
you'd only use this mechanism for Unstable type stuff.
The final distro would of course still be built under
more controlled conditions.
Actually this is what happens now, and the process isn't
all that fast, and isn't all the coherent: the most popular
new architecture -- the one set to dominate the desktop market
IMHO -- and the primary arch of Ubuntu -- namely x86_64 -- isn't
even built by the main autobuild as I understand it, there's a
separate team working on that and 'trying to sync with the
main archive'. I had to explicitly request my ISP -- who
mirrors Debian -- to add a mirror for the AMD64 binaries.
[Of course I can't use it on Ubuntu which is absurd for
non basic packages .. very annoying]
Now you may say 'autobuild power is not one of the main problems'
but I'd question that. It assumes certain goals and styles which
are themselves part of the problem. Perhaps you're satisfied with
a one month turnaround on a modification .. but I personally
find a couple of seconds is more productive. Ok, I exaggerate
a little (I'm as well known for that as Debian is for being
conservative and sluggish :).
--
John Skaller <skaller at users dot sf dot net>
Felix, successor to C++: http://felix.sf.net
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