Re: about volatile.d.o/n

[John Hasler <jhasler@debian.org>]

Henning Makholm writes:

>   1. Volatile is a means for *pushing* updates to stable
>      installations, where such updates are necessary for *preserving*
>      the utility of packages due to changes of the outside world.

>   2. "Necessary for preserving the utility" should be judged under
>      the assumption that the machine that runs stable does not itself
>      change. (I.e., appeals to "this is needed for modern hardware"
>      don't count).

>   3. No update pushed through volatile should ever change any
>      user interfaces or programmatic interface. (How paranoid
>      developers are expected to be in ensuring this is negotiable,
>      but it must at least be the *goal* that no interfaces change.)

> ...

> An update of mozilla-browser would be appropriate for volatile if it
> did not change the upstream codebase, but, say, updated the default
> SSL root certificate set in response to announcements from a
> well-known CA.

> An update that fixed the default style sheet to include new tags
> from XHTML 2.1, assuming that it was possible without code changes,
> would be borderline. Anything more involved than that - no thanks.

Sounds about right to me.
-- 
John Hasler