I heard back from doko today. We can expect a reply tomorrow. We also talked briefly about the issue. Realistically, i cannot imagine the TC coming to any final decision on something like this in under three weeks. That timeline seems fairly aggressive actually. However, I think the TC could act much more quickly in an interim capacity. I personally believe that having packages building is a better interim state than the status quo. There are risks to an interim measure. We could have packages in the archive that build but fail to function correctly. Depending on what we do long term, we could end up replacing packges currently in Stretch with packages we can no longer rebuild. I personally think that when I weigh those risks against my estimate of their probability, I think it makes sense to adopt an interim measure. Roughly I propose to override the maintainer and permit an NMU to be made for this issue. The decision stands until the maintainer fixes the bug or Stretch releases, or another resolution is passed (presumably with a more permanent decision). Yes, that means that the maintainer could reintroduce the bug and revert the NMU immediately on the release of Stretch. First, I hope even the TC can act quickly enough that we're not using an interim measure then. Second, I think that's actually appropriate. The justification for an interim measure is the impending freeze. Once we get Stretch out, this issue is still important, TC involvement may be necessary, but there is no reason to cut process corners. I propose to be very agressive in calling for a vote on the following ballot. I plan to call for a vote in 24 hours if I get support from at least one TC member and no objections from within the TC or release team. In that assumption is a belief that I'll have a chance to review the patch and the upstream bugzilla discussion prior to calling for a vote. If I don't have time to do that, I will delay, although I would not object to someone else who has done the review calling for a vote. Also, within that time, we should hear from doko. His input may change my thinking even for an interim measure. I want to stress this is only my interim thinking. This is in the TC git; feel free to fix/amend as necessary. ---------------------------------------- In #850887, the Debian Technical Committee was asked to choose a solution for #840227, a bug that prevents a significant number of packages from building on the mips architecture. Given the upcoming Stretch freeze, this issue is urgent. As an interim measure, using its powers under section 6.1.4 of the Debian Constitution, the Technical Committee overrules Matthias Klose's decision to revert the NMU of binutils fixing #840227. The committee requests Lisandro Damián Nicanor Pérez Meyer to make a new NMU fixing #840227. The committee requests the release team to support the interim nature of this solution and if a permanent solution is adopted before the release of Stretch, to consider including that solution in Stretch even if the freeze criteria would not normally permit such consideration. In addition, the committee requests the stable release managers for Stretch to consider including the eventual upstream solution for this issue into a stretch update. This interim decision stands until the release of Stretch, until it is replaced by resolution, or until the binutils maintainer fixes #840227 in some other manner. ---------------------------------------- Choice 1: Approve the Resolution (3:1 majority) Choice 2: Reject this Interim Measure Choice 3: Further Discussion ---------------------------------------- I've included a separate reject and FD choice to distinguish "we need more info for deciding on an interm solution even" from "we have enough info and this approach is bad."
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