Re: Results of the meeting in Helsinki about the Vancouver proposal

[Olaf van der Spek <olafvdspek@gmail.com>]

On 8/22/05, Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 22, 2005 at 11:44:05AM +0200, Olaf van der Spek wrote:
> > On 8/22/05, Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> wrote:
> > > In particular, we invariably run into arch-specific problems every time
> > > a new version of a toolchain package is uploaded to unstable.  Some may
> > > remember that the new glibc/gcc blocked non-toolchain progress for
> > > months during the beginning of the sarge release cycle, and that the
> > > aftermath took months more to be sorted out.  So far, etch threatens to
> > > be more of the same; in the past month we've had:
> 
> > I've been wondering, why isn't the new toolchain tested and the
> > resulting errors fixed before it's uploaded to unstable or made the
> > default?
> 
> Tested by *who*, exactly?  That's precisely the question here.  These
> are bugs that don't get found by just doing a test compile of one or two
> programs, they only get found by making extensive use of the toolchain.
> If the toolchain maintainers don't use the architecture in question, and
> there's no porter involved in the toolchain (packaging or upstream),
> then this doesn't happen.

I'm not aware of the details and natures of the bugs but if they
indeed cause months of troubles it may be an idea to look at getting
test builds done of the entire archive for all architectures. At least
for i386.