Re: apt-update via patches
On Wed, Nov 21, 2001 at 12:10:18PM +0100, Michael Bramer wrote:
>
> with this all woody user can't use this 'diff'.
>
> also this is are very big diffs.
>
IMHO there is no way that would ever be set up for woody, since it
involves changes in the release management. That must happen with a
new major release of Debian and be announced well in advance.
So to reiterate the whole thing:
1. New release.
2. Subsequent changes to this release done as deltas to the released
version.
Whether or not that is a workable alternative to the current scheme
is something that needs to be discussed.
The development versions must be handeled differently, most likely
produce debs for each new upstream release and each rebuild for the
system (which IMHO should occur at least once through the develoment
cicle to get rid of old dependencies!) and use delta debs for
subsequent Debian package revisions.
There are other ideas that have been floating around since before
i left Debian as active maintainer (which is some five years now),
like doing a complete bootstrap of the system for every major
release which would require changes to release management as well
and would blend in nicely with the (common praxis for commercial
unices) of only distribution patch kits to a release until the
next release happens.
In a sense Debian is doing that, but already we are having problems
that one can not just take a deb from woody and install it on potato
and expect it to work. Sure in many cases it might, but sooner or
later your potato looks more like woody because of all the necessary
dependencies when all you wanted to do was to install one package not
yet available for potato.
Now by simply distributing patch kits for a certain release, we make
clear that this will only work on this release and not on a prior one.
That makes for much improved serviceability (is there such a word?)
of the individual releases.
Sure we are sacrificing flexibility but the gained stability is worth
it. But as always YMMV...
Dominik Kubla
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