Re: Proposal: 'Expires' entry in Debian package header
On Mon, Jul 17, 2000 at 10:43:18PM +0200, Harald Dunkel wrote:
> Of course the goal is not to annoy the developers or package maintainers.
> But with 5000 packages you get about 5000 maintainers, too. It's hard
> to manage all these people.
>
> Why shouldn't a package maintainer decide to stop supporting 'his'
> package, when he has provided a newer/extended version? The Expires
> entry would help him to get rid of the old version with a smooth
> migration period for other maintainers.
Most packages have no packages (that come from a different source) that
depend on them. A few packages have a couple packages depending on them.
For those packages, the upgrader can send some messages either to the
BTS or directly to the maintainer saying, "Hey, I want to upgrade libsdl,
would you mind recompiling your packages for the new version so I can get
rid of the old version quickly?"
There are a few packages (gnome-libs, ncurses, tcl) that have tens to
hundreds of packages depending on them. If you need a new version, you
post news to the list (debian-gnome, debian-x, or just plain debian-devel)
and keep the old version around for a while (a release, if nessecary),
filing normal bugs on anyone who doesn't upgrade. Then, when you're well
clear of a release, you remove it and start filing important bugs.
That's the way it works now. I don't understand why you think it doesn't
work well enough. Any system is going to have problems with old versions,
just because you can not upgrade 100+ packages to the new, slightly-
incompatible version all of a sudden, with or without an expires field.
--
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
http/ftp: x8b4e53cd.dhcp.okstate.edu
It was starting to rain on the night that they cried forever,
It was blinding with snow on the night that they screamed goodbye.
- Dio, "Rock and Roll Children"
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