Re: For those who care about their packages in Debian
Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> writes:
> Please stop filing ITPs and concentrate on packages that should be
> included in squeeze. The sooner squeeze is out, the sooner you can add
> stuff to the next release.
This comes up with every release, so I guess I'll reiterate what I end up
saying during every release.
This sort of request is based on erroneous assumptions, and while intended
to be helpful, can just be frustrating and demotivating to people who are
working on other things in Debian. I don't have an undistinguished bucket
of time that's "Debian time" that I'm choosing to use on new software
packages instead of working on helping the release. I have some Debian
time, which is going towards release issues, and I have time spent on
other projects (generally day-job projects) that involve, in part,
packaging new software for Debian.
That last bucket of time is simply not available to work on the squeeze
release, period. If I weren't spending it on packaging new things for
Debian, I would not be spending it on Debian *at all*. I don't think you
actually would prefer that.
I, and I suspect many other people who are working on packaging new
software for their own reasons, am quite aware of the release and are
trying to stay out of the way. I'm uploading new upstream versions to
experimental and taking similar precautions to make sure that work
unrelated to the release doesn't interfere with the release.
If there's a specific reason why uploading completely new leaf packages to
unstable causes problems for the release coordination, please do say so on
debian-devel. I'm personally not seeing it off-hand, but I'm probably
missing someting. I haven't done this yet, but hadn't found any reason
why it would be a problem and could have seen myself doing that.
Please also remember that many of us just got back from DebConf enthused
about new projects, and are working on those projects while we have
emotional momentum. Depending on how one's brain works, the alternative
to working on projects while enthused about them is not working on them
after the release; it can be never working on them at all. It is, of
course, incumbant on us to do so in a way that doesn't interfere with the
release.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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