Thanks for quick reply, Alexander.
On Thursday 12 November 2015 19:59:08 Alexander Wirt wrote:
> I am sorry, but we already made stated several times that we don't want to
> support such configurations. Backports is for packages from testing.
I'd argue with that a little. :)
1) You probably remember that Wheezy did not have Zabbix which did not make
it into oldstable release before freeze. Then release team recommended to
maintain Zabbix in backports so I did and Wheezy had Zabbix only form
backports. Why am I reminding about that? Because it is the same 2.2.x LTS
branch that is in Jessie and which I want to upload to backports.
2) I suppose our reasoning for maintaining Zabbix exclusively in backports
was not because it is "in testing" but to make it available for Wheezy
through backports. Therefore "in testing" is a rule of strong quality
assurance but not the goal or purpose of a backport.
3) Testing have 2.4 which is not LTS and IMHO therefore is not suitable for
backports. 2.4 is an intermediate release between current and next LTS
releases. I could ask release team for permission to update Zabbix in
"stable" but they are likely to use the same argument "never been in
testing". Also _I am_ not comfortable replacing version in stable -- that's
why I want to provide alternative from backports.
Here I have dilemma -- on one hand in order to maintain LTS release in
backports I could never upload 2.4 to testing; or give up on shipping LTS
branch for Jessie. Both options are not great.
3) I believe "not in testing" rule is mostly to ensure smooth upgrade path.
For both packages what I want to upload to "jessie-backports" is << than
version in "testing".
> You are looking for something like stable update or a private repo.
or backports-sloppy? We don't have a backports-sloppy for Jessie, right?
I do not believe in private repositories. Every significant effort should be
made public. Packaging Calligra took more than 6 weeks of effort and I'd like
to share results. There are users who want stable Zabbix and Calligra [1].
Besides performance problem in Libreoffice forced me into looking for
alternative office suite so IMHO backport of Calligra addresses a real
problem in Jessie that backports of LibreOffice did not fix.
I think it is just not fair to block Calligra backport on the ground that it
can't be in "testing" -- as I've said, upload to testing is impossible for
technical reasons -- Calligra simply FTBFS there due to completed QT4-->QT5
transitions of its dependency libraries.
I always thought that "testing" is a staging area for next release while
backports do not have to always derive from "testing" (only whenever
possible). At least that what my common sense tells me...
Please let me know if I've missed a Debian facility allowing to deliver
conservative upstream stable releases to users of current "stable" without
replacing software that were frozen in stable. I thought that backports is a
perfect facility for that...
[1]: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=787033#18
> sorry
No worries. :)
--
Regards,
Dmitry Smirnov.
---
I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common
sense.
-- H. L. Mencken
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