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Bug#587886: marked as done (future of maintaining of the bootloader LILO)

Your message dated Wed, 1 Dec 2010 18:05:33 -0800
with message-id <20101202020533.GV3254@rzlab.ucr.edu>
and subject line Re: Bug#587886: future of maintaining of the bootloader LILO
has caused the Debian Bug report #587886,
regarding future of maintaining of the bootloader LILO
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

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-- 
587886: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=587886
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner@bugs.debian.org with problems
--- Begin Message --- 
Package: tech-ctte
Severity: normal

Hello,

Since six weeks I see a very problematic situation of LILO maintaining
and I don't know how this problem could be solved.

Since the initial mail from William Pitcock, the LILO maintainer 
(2010-05-22): http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00769.html
it started a discussion about the removing of LILO. Because of many
statements of William it seems he don't want to do anymore for the lilo
package in Debian. One central reason is: there is no upstream for years.

On the other side there are many users (popcon = 2596) who still want to
use lilo. And the second side is: grub2 is still very beta. Some mails 
to debian-devel say: grub2 is far away from stable and for using in
productive systems!

Because of this situation I have decided to overtake the development of
LILO and offer an upstream for Debian (2010-06-06 and 2010-06-19):
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00117.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00399.html

The reaction of William about my announcement was not in the way who I
have thought. It seems he still wants to remove lilo from Debian.

With the mail from William (2010-06-07) and the following thread:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00137.html
it seems William doesn't believe to lilo anymore. In this thread he was
asked to orphan the lilo package. But no answer came from the maintainer.

In the following time I have asked William Pitcock (and the second
maintainer Matt Arnold) to orphan the package because it is apparent they
don't want to maintain the package anymore. I have asked twice: public on
debian-devel and also private. But it seems they don't be interested in
surrendering the maintaining of the package. On the other side how I can
analyse about the QA site of lilo and the bug reports the recent
maintainer seems to be nearly inactive since many months.

In some other mails it seems the favorit for William (and also Matt
Arnold) is now extlinux. O.K. this is a private preference, but I think
on Debian it is normal to have more solutions for the same thing (here:
bootloader). So I see no reason to remove the lilo package.

In the last two weeks there were other discussions on debian-devel about
bootloader to prepare for squeeze to make it working with new kernels and
the new way of updateing kernel + initrd: 

Many informations about newer requirements to bootloader:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2010/06/msg01011.html

New informations about updated package initramfs-tools:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2010/06/msg01063.html

This evolution must be go into lilo, too. But this need a very active
maintaining of this package, which I don't see. 

Now I see the danger, that lilo still "slip" into the next stable
(squeeze) but can not be used productive in the next stable because of
lack of the right scripts.

Because lilo is a very good software and is still need by many users, I
think the lilo package in Debian merit an active maintaining. It should
not be blocked of maintaining.

Please appeal to the recent maintainer to orphan the lilo package. Then
other people who still use and want lilo can overtake the maintaining.

Or is there another solution?

Have a nice day,

Joachim (Germany)

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: PGP signature


--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
On Tue, 30 Nov 2010, Don Armstrong wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Nov 2010, Don Armstrong wrote:
> > Is there any objection to starting the voting process on this issue
> > with the options presented in
> > http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=587886#55 ?
> > 
> > [for reference:
> > 
> >  A. lilo should be removed.  In the meantime, William is to be sole
> >     maintainer of lilo.  His promised request to the ftp team to
> >     remove lilo should be honoured, after which the ftp masters should
> >     not permit Matt and/or Joachim to reupload a new lilo package.
> > 
> >  B. lilo should be retained in unstable.  Matt and Joachim are to be
> >     joint maintainers of lilo.  
> 
> I vote
> 
> B
> A
> Status Quo

With Bdale's vote (possibly before if it didn't require 3:1) the
outcome is no longer in doubt.

Andreas, Russ, Ian, Manoj, Bdale and myself all voted B,A,FD/SQ. Steve
has not yet voted.

Lilo should be retained in unstable. Matt and Joachim are to be joint
maintainers of lilo.

I will record the decision shortly on the CTTE webpage.


Don Armstrong

-- 
You could say she lived on the edge... Well, maybe not exactly on the edge,
just close enough to watch other people fall off.
  -- hugh macleod http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000309.html

http://www.donarmstrong.com              http://rzlab.ucr.edu

--- End Message ---
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