Re: Bits (Nybbles?) from the Vancouver release team meeting

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

Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> writes:

> Removing unimportant buggy packages from testing is *easy* -- much
> easier than trying to craft guidelines for declaring a set of "core"
> packages.  Getting all of the packages that are considered too important
> to release without is *hard*.  Hand-holding an RC bugfix to make sure it
> gets built on all 11 architectures is much, much harder.

I have long thought that part of the problem here is that the release
team can directly solve some problems, but others it is always forced
to wait for someone else to solve them.

Release team can NMU bug fixes, and can push packages into testing
before the strict criteria are met, and can exclude packages from
testing by filing appropriate RC bugs.

Release team cannot adjust wanna-build priorities, remove packages
that are blocking bug fixes, or include new packages into the archive
(the most frequent problem being soname bumps on libraries), without
asking someone else to do it for them.

I think we could immediately solve a jillion problems if the release
team had more plenary ability to solve problems itself, directly,
rather than being forced to wait for someone else to solve some of
them.

Thomas