On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 04:39:54PM +0100, Michael Tautschnig wrote:
> [...]
>
> I feel the subject of this thread is not very well aligned with your reasoning -
> I don't think innovation==breaking things!? At least for myself the init system
I very much disagree.
"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible"
Alas, most of the time, with software, deviation means
incompatibilities. Not everything can be transitioned gracefully.
Absolutely so in the early days of work, which is when we need this
most of all.
As a result, people refuse to embrace progress for fear of "breaking
things", or not being able to back the change out. Re-read some of the
recent threads.
> is a particularly bad example: I have quite a while ago stopped following that
> thread as the noise/information ratio was way too high for a sub-system I don't
> necessarily care about (I just need *some* working init).
>
> To re-iterate: are you worrying about innovation or about a lack of interest in
> breaking things?
I don't think there's a lack of interest in innovating. I just don't
think we have a way to do it without putting thumb-screws on excited
people, and weighing them down.
Personally, with desktop-base, I want to split the package to allow for
more correct dependencies. I want to try this split out, and see how it
works on a real system.
Here's the process:
- Get a server
- Set up dak (ok, really reprepro would be fine, but I'm making a
point)
- Set up wanna-build
- Get some build boxen
- Upload new desktop-base with changes
- "NMU" packages in the archive to work with the new packages in the overlay
- Fiddle with it
- Push work back to Debian main
This is stupid. I don't want to screw with servers to try out some
ideas.
I want the process to be something like:
- New PPAMAIN
- Upload new package
- "NMU" packages to work with the new stuff (this needs to be
something that the project is OK with) inside the PPA
- Fiddle
- Push it back up
Screwing with setting up servers is absurd. I just want to hack. I don't
want to maintain the archive. I don't want to maintain the servers. I
don't want to support build boxen.
We need to find a way to get the "boring" stuff out of the way for
people excited about change, and not try to box them into non-breaking
changes only while they work out the kinks.
>
> Best,
> Michael
>
Yes, this is about breaking things. We can't restrict innovation to
non-breaking changes. By letting DDs break things in a little corner,
there's a good chance that this helps come up with a *real* transition
plan that prevents breakage on real machines.
Either way, semantics, IMHO,
Paul
--
.''`. Paul Tagliamonte <paultag@debian.org>
: :' : Proud Debian Developer
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