* Lasse Karkkainen (tronic2@sci.fi) [020415 22:04]: > Someone said that X is a difficult package to maintain and that there is > nothing wrong if PACKAGING it takes 3+ months. People have managed to > install it from sources in matter of HOURS (well, that didn't work for > me, dunno why). Based on that packaging it during a single weekend > should be possible. As we are talking about UNSTABLE here, no real > testing needs to be done before releasing - that's what the Debian > Unstable is for, right? I'm going to try to explain why this isn't the case. Just so you know, I was, for the most part, the only developer for TurboLinux version 6.0 through 6.0.4 (give or take). I took over for someone else who did the beginning part of migrating to the new libc. I had someone help by doing the X packages, but I always had to fix "inter-packages" issues. TurboLinux *never* had a package as good as Debian had at the time. To package something for debian, it must not just *compile* for the developer (which is all we really cared about at the time at TurboLinux), but it must compile on the rebuild server. It also must compile on multiple platforms. That isn't usually a trival task (we only cared about x86 at TL). Dependencies between packages is hard. Since xfree includes the x libs, a *lot* of packages depend on it. No one would be happy if installing X4.2.0 removed all their x applications. In addition, imaging that Brandon created a crappy, done on a weekend, package for x. Can you imagine the number of bugs? And Brandon would have to reply to them all. Under the way bugs are managed in Debian (even under unstable) this would be hell for him. Now, maybe you have some point. Perhaps some packages should be flagged as "very alpha" (ie, pre-beta). In that case, bugs *wouldn't* be allowed to be posted against it, and maybe the user would have to manually say "I understand this package could destroy everything" for each alpha package. That might be a nice feature. But then again. When Brandon gets packages that are that quality, he usually makes them available seperately, which has a similar effect. Finally, you mentioned that you thought that maybe someone else should do the new packages since Brandon is busy finishing up X4.1 for woody/testing. On the surface, it seems like a good idea. But in practise, it requires the new developer to be in tight coordination with the goals of the new developer. In practise, it would be better if this (currently fictional) developer finished up 4.1 for Brandon, while Brandon does the starts on the new one. Allowing packages as complex as the X packages to upgrade smoothly is very hard work and Brandon does a very good job. I hope that I have explained why Brandon is doing a very good job and that it *is* very hard, despite the fact that it seems like it should be fairly easy. I understand your fustration, since this is something that impacts whether you can use Debian on your new hardware. But its something that should be done right. I don't know how you'll take this email, or how badly you feel after the responses on the mailing list. It might be worth knowing that every so often (about every few months) a flame-Brandon-fest starts. I don't particularly like this because Brandon does do a good job. I would like to ask you to offer an apology to Brandon, saying that you didn't know that it was a difficult task and maybe say thank you for the work he has done already. But that's your choice. Ciao! -- Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur. (Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound. The Doctor What: <fill in the blank> http://docwhat.gerf.org/ docwhat@gerf.org KF6VNC
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