Re: wterm in potato
On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 02:53:30PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > FWIW, IMHO "release-critical bug" is a misnomer. There can exist
> > release-critical packages, those packages with which we can not really
> > release, and bugs against such packages can be marked as release-critical.
>
> Hmmm. It's not so much the *package* that's the problem though, as the
> bug itself. I presume, eg, you'd be perfectly happy to release wterm if
> its various obnoxious bugs had been removed in time?
Of course! Why you would ever think that I would think different is beyond
me. :)
(does that sentence make any sense?)
> > However, bugs against other packages that aren't release-critical, meaning
> > we can remove them and live on without them, can only be described as bugs
> > "making the package in question not suitable for release" (or similar).
>
> Yes, I guess so. I just think of it as being critical to the package's
> release, rather than the release as a whole, though.
Yes, but that's not what an innocent bystander could think at first sight.
It's ambigous.
I've mentioned this to Wichert, and he said he could make bugscan output
several reports, one for Priority: >= standard, one for optional, ...
> > Anyhow, I don't exactly know how to make `Severity: important' definition
> > more concrete/non-vague/whatever.
>
> More *objective*. So that you can say `yes, it definitely satisfies these
> properties, anyone can see that without having to discuss it on -devel, so
> therefore the bug's important enough that the package should be removed'.
However, such set of rules, that would objectively and clearly define the
requirements for a package to be included in stable, would need to be
written very carefully and would most probably need to be updated regularly.
And still, some people would disagree with (individual points of) it. :)
> This sounds kinda related to one of the positions that only Joel Klecker
> had the balls to include in his DPL platform:
>
> One other problem I want to address is the amount of useless packages
> in Debian, our goal should not be to package every piece of free
> software in the world no matter how useless. I'm not sure of the best
> way to approach this problem or how to solve it, but it will be
> something I'll investigate.
>
> ie, since wterm has both some fairly lame bugs, and doesn't really do
> anything special, and since there are other packages without the lame
> bugs, wterm is therefore a `useless package' (to use the technical term)
> and shouldn't be included in Debian.
>
> This does, actually have a certain internal logic to it.
>
> Which is really quite annoying when you're trying to disagree with it.
>
> Hmmm.
Exactly :)
> Note that this is using a different criterion for rejecting a package
> than just the traditional `it has a security hole, don't install it', or
> `it'll delete your files, don't install it'. This is more `no, there're
> much better programs, trust us. use one of them instead.', which we don't
> generally do in Debian. Yet, at least.
We do a wee bit of that with our defaults, i.e. package priorities and task
packages, but otherwise, yes, we include whatever anyone wishes to package
and maintain. That stance has its positive and negative sides, obviously.
--
enJoy -*/\*- don't even try to pronounce my first name
Reply to: