Re: DPLs : what do you think about ...
On Sun, Dec 13, 1998 at 12:43:38PM -0800, Joey Hess wrote:
> Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> > - Ben Collins idea : no unstable fork before deep-freeze
>
> FWIW, I'm against this for a reason you may not have considered. This makes
> it impossible to work on making large changes to debian-only packages during
> a freeze, which in turn means that they can only really be worked on about
> half the time. I've in the past made big changes to versions of debhelper
> and alien in unstable while a freeze was going on. If I had been hobbled by
> not being able to release those changes for public testing as part of debian
> until "deep freeze", those programs would not be as far along as they are
> now.
People should be concentrating on getting the frozen dist complete, not
making changes to packages for unstable. If we do it this way, it is
concievable that it wont be as long till deep freeze as it takes now. When
deep freeze comes along, then we fork an unstable. If you don't have
anything to do with your packages for frozen, take a break or pitch in
with the "Bug Group" or help other maintainers get their packages bug
free.
I think feature updates to debian specific packages can hold off till
after the freeze, if not, then post them with a link to your personal
space so maintainers can test it out. During a freeze nothing is as
important as getting the frozen dist as bug free as possible.
> This also affects other packages I've written (pdmenu, perlmoo) that
> currently use the debian package as the upstream source (ie, "debian-only"
> version number, though they arn't debian specific). I would have to start
> releasing those non-debian so I could work on them during the freezes, and
> maintaining a debian branch seperatly, which would be more administrative
> work.
What is there that says you can't release your software without a debian
upload? It just means holding off till you can upload to the archive, but
you can still work on it and still release it. Debian isn't a personal
software releasing method, and non-debian packages shouldn't depend on it
as such, you can't expect to force an entire fork for the sake of your
release methods can you?
Sounds kind of harshe i know, but the whole point is that frozen is top
priority, and not giving it that priority is a grave mistake. With an
immediate unstable fork, that priority is gone.
--
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Ben Collins <b.m.collins@larc.nasa.gov> Debian GNU/Linux
UnixGroup Admin - Jordan Systems Inc. bcollins@debian.org
------ -- ----- - - ------- ------- -- The Choice of the GNU Generation
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