Re: perl version depends

[Richard Braakman <dark@xs4all.nl>]

Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> Le Thu, Oct 08, 1998 at 04:14:18AM +0200, Martin Schulze écrivait:
> > Another solution would be a) to postpone the freeze for some time or b)
> > allow fixed perl uploads within the freeze.
> 
> b) would be fine for me. Because perl uploads will not introduce any 
> security holes and because packages will only be modified in the sense
> that they will use a different directory. 

That "only" is a large source of packaging bugs.  In fact, the (IMO)
most annoying upgrade problem in hamm was a pathname problem: two
packages had moved to a different directory at the last minute, and
the auto upgrade script hadn't been modified to match.

I think we should fall back on perl 5.004, and only move to 5.005 when
there's a real plan for upgrading cleanly.  Many core utilities rely
on perl, as do many maintainerscripts.  This problem will *not* go
away when the perl packages have been rebuilt -- the upgrade process
itself will break.  People will be upgrading from hamm to slink when
we release it, and they will run into problems like update-inetd
breaking halfway through a mass upgrade.

Richard Braakman