Re: Source only uploads?
On Wed, Oct 22, 2003 at 05:00:34PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 22, 2003 at 10:02:06AM -0500, John Hasler wrote:
> > Andrew Suffield wrote:
> > > I say that failing to function when built in anything but a particular
> > > artificial environment is a serious bug in a source package.
> >
> > The environment on the workstation of any random developer is no less
> > artificial than of the autobuilders. The latter, however, is consistent,
> > reproducible, and designed to minimize variables.
>
> And the whole point is that this is not desireable.
>
> Why has nobody been paying attention?
I think you have now posted at least a couple of messages which successfully
explain your point.
You think that having tested a package which was built in a "real-world"
situation is critical.
Most people who are arguing with you think that it is more important that
the binary packages we ship are built in a know, reproducible, and consistent
way.
If we keep the status quo as you suggest, we will be hit by the occasional
case where something goes wrong on autobuilt packages because the maintainer
accidentally did something "special" (which could even be part of Debian) on
his machine when building. We also get the "HTF did this ever build at all?"
bugs.
If we autobuild everything, we may get the reverse; the occasional problem
that only occurs when you have something "special" (which could be part of
Debian) on the build system.
Either way, occasionally you will get nasty problems that the other method
would have caught.
The difference is that autobuilding everything is reproducible, consistent,
predictable and all those other things that good engineering practice is
supposed to be.
Eliminating sources of human error is GOOD.
Cheers,
Nick
Reply to: