Re: A better recompile process? Was: Re: testing, unstable, and dependencies

[Brian May <bam@debian.org>]

On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 12:31:55PM +0100, Ola Lundqvist wrote:
> Before I answer I have to know one more thing. Is all packages recompiled
> before they enter unstable or is that just for testing?
> 
> If they are not recompiled that will not be a problem because that they
> are tested becuase people tend to use unstable (at least people like
> me).
> 
> If all packages are recompiled before entering unstable that is a
> problem. If so we have to tag them differently depending on if
> they are rebuilt or not.

I may have misunderstood you question.

When you upload a package to Debian, you upload the source code, plus
one compiled version to unstable.

Debian autobuilders will then build the source code for all other
architectures, and puts the result in unstable.

The code is not recompiled again, even if it goes into testing or
stable.

Which perhaps is another idea, that is that code should be compiled
for unstable when it enters unstable, and it should be compiled for
testing when it enters testing.

However, implementing this might be complicated if you don't want a
package to enter testing until it has been built on all architectures
for testing. You would need some sort of holding area between unstable
and testing where packages go before the testing version is completely
built.

When a new major library version enters testing, the applications will
depend on the old one still and may have to get rebuilt. It is possible
that at least some of these will break due to incompatabilities.

There might be other issues here too, but I haven't but much
consideration into it.
-- 
Brian May <bam@debian.org>