Ron <ron@debian.org> writes: > Hi Marga, > > On Tue, Nov 01, 2016 at 11:32:49AM +0100, Margarita Manterola wrote: >> > Philip Hands <phil@hands.com> writes: >> > It seems like you are tempted to drop htags anyway now, so calling the >> > version 6 package 'global' and adding the global5 package to give people >> > an escape route seems like the right thing to do. >> > >> > That also makes it much easier to detect when people cling to version 5, >> > since there will only be intentional installations of that package. >> >> I second this proposal by Phil. It seems to me that this is the most reasonable >> outcome, given the current situation. This means that global gets updated to the >> latest version, with a NEWS message stating that htags functionality has been >> removed and that users that care about htags should install global5 instead. >> >> Ron, you haven't replied to this proposal yet. Can you state your opinion >> regarding this? > > Did I mess up on the CC for that somehow? Or was there something I > didn't address about the question(s) of going this way in: > https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=841294#135 > > I can try to clarify that if there's a question in your mind that > you don't think I touched on there. The question that remains is what you actually intend to do. You went into some detail about why the existing popcon figures should not be relied upon, which is fair enough but seems not to take account of the fact that my suggestion was for you to create a new global5 package which would not be automatically pulled in by anything (unless the maintainers of reverse dependencies decide that it's better to switch to depending upon global5, which should probably be strongly discouraged). The popcon figures for global would then still be contaminated with whatever dragged it in in the first place, but the figures for global5 would tell you the extent to which the userbase of the global5-only features actually exists. Either there are real users for those features, which might persuade you that the effort of backporting features to global5 is justified -- in that case the exit strategy would be for the patched global5 to be the final inheritor of the 'global' package (in stretch+1 say, replacing the v6 package once you have the relevant feature parity). Alternatively, if very few people install global5, you can publish an update that reminds people that the package is going away, and asking them to tell you why they might be upset about that, and then you either get useful feedback, or you can remove the package with a clear conscience. I would think that this is a strategy that would allow you to act. Perhaps you can explain why you apparently think doing nothing indefinitely is better for our users. I am aware that there are subtleties here that I may have missed, so please don't assume that I'm intentionally ignoring what you think of as the obvious flaws with this idea. I really don't mind being treated as an ignoramus. Cheers, Phil. -- |)| Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560] HANDS.COM Ltd. |-| http://www.hands.com/ http://ftp.uk.debian.org/ |(| Hugo-Klemm-Strasse 34, 21075 Hamburg, GERMANY
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