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Re: Removal of transitional dummy packages



On Mon, Jul 18, 2005 at 10:51:23AM +0200, Olaf van der Spek wrote:
> On 7/17/05, Joerg Jaspert <joerg@debian.org> wrote:
> > As we only support upgrades to the next release and not any other its
> > very clear to remove them from the archive.

> Does 'not supporting' equal 'requiring it to fail'?

It equals "we have no expectation whatsoever that upgrades from woody to
etch will work for *anyone*, so users are much better off if we deliver this
message to them consistently instead of hinting with a couple of remaining
transition packages here and there that it might work".  We know from
experience with sarge that we're already spread very thin where upgrade
support is concerned, so it's important that we neither overpromise nor let
ourselves be distracted by things that won't actually be of benefit to
users.

In this context, woody->sarge transition packages are just one form of
useless cruft that we should strive to get rid of before the etch release.
They're not the biggest source of cruft, but on the other hand they are
(IMHO) one of the sources for which the proper course of action is clearest.

-- 
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer

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