Re: -= PROPOSAL =- Release sarge with amd64
"D. Starner" <shalesller@writeme.com> writes:
> I think that's a little unfair. I assumed that people would know the
> basic plan (yes, failure to anticipate what my audience knows and
> doesn't know is one of my communication failures) and intend to explain
> why they think this is a good plan, instead of technical details.
Well, I'm asking now. If you want the developers to approve your
GR--something I'm extremely skeptical about--you have to be willing to
start filling in details. I'm not blaming you for not trotting them
out before; I'm just explaining, if you want my support, what you have
to tell me.
> > Details would be: which parts of LSB is the port not compliant with?
>
> The part that requires 64 bit libraries to be installed in /lib64/
> instead of /lib.
>
> > Why do the packages require changes to become compliant?
>
> Library packages have to install in /lib64 instead of /lib.
These seem to be extremely trivial problems to fix. By comparison
with what other ports go through, I don't really have much sympathy.
Install the libraries where they want, and file appropriate bugs to
get them to do so.
A reasonable technical solution would be a program that packages can
run which tells them where to install libraries--perhaps, indeed, a
debconf variable. I presume the porters and the technical committee
could come up with a good way.
> > Why is the
> > result in question considered inelegant?
>
> The fact that it supports only one ABI switch and adds new
> directories to root.
I don't understand what you mean be "supports only one ABI switch",
can you explain that more fully.
As for adding new directories to root, the FHS and LSB own root (more
or less). Saying "it's inelegant to add new directories to root" may
be true, but here you are simply rewriting the LSB (which has already
made that judgment, and decided against you), and regardless of
whether the LSB is right or wrong, Debian has committed to follow it,
for good reasons.
So you will never get me to approve of not following the LSB on the
grounds that you simply happen to disagree with the elegance of its
solutions.
> > A multi-arch system may or may not be a good idea, but regardless,
> > it's irrelevant to the question at hand, which is about the inclusion
> > of amd64 in stable now.
>
> The difference between what AMD64 does right now and the standard asks
> for is that we don't do a multiarch system. (The standard asks for a
> biarch system.) If it's not a good idea, then AMD64 shouldn't follow
> the standard.
You don't have a multi-arch system. So the decision isn't about
whether we have one or not. Please stop trotting out vaporware as if
it were relevant. If anything, the more you say "we will do this some
other way when we finish coding" only convinces me that it's not
appropriate for stable.
> There won't be an AMD64 with /lib64 in sarge. It's just too
> destabilizing. It seems counter-productive to transition to /lib64,
> and then move all those libraries to /lib/amd64-linux-gnu/ later.
I don't think so; it's trivial--if you use a configuration variable
strategy for picking which directory to put the libraries into.
I agree that a multi-arch system is superior to the double-arch
mechanism. But that isn't the question here.
Thomas
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