Re: buildd queue starvation (Was: Re: Do not make gratuitous source uploads just to provoke the buildds!)

[Thomas Bushnell BSG <tb@becket.net>]

Jeroen van Wolffelaar <jeroen@wolffelaar.nl> writes:

> If the queue is non-zero for a longer time, there is a problem in buildd
> machine power, and the wanna-build admin has choosen to in this case
> allocate the buildd power that remains to the building of packages that
> are of higher priority, regardless of their age in the queue. The
> allocation of a scarce resource is almost by definition a trade-off, and
> this is the decision that has been made.

First off, I think much confusion has been caused by using the word
queue here.  A queue is a FIFO list; if there isn't even the least bit
FIFO in its management, which seems to be the case, then it shouldn't
be called a queue.  If it were not called a queue, I would not have
made many wrong assumptions, and I think others too, to assume that of
course some kind of FIFO processing was happening.  So PLEASE change
the name; stop calling it a queue.

I can see excellent reasons why age in the list shouldn't matter.  But
package "priority" and "section" are extremely poor bases to decide
what the actual importance of a package is.  I think the three most
critical factors are whether the package closes bugs, and the priority
of the bugs it closes (counting all the bugs closed between the
current unstable version for that arch and the upload being
considered); the stated priority of the upload itself, whether low,
medium, or high; and *particular* cases of section and priority.  It
makes sense to have Required and Standard packages go first; it makes
sense to have libraries go first.  

Thomas