Re: Being part of a community and behaving
Anthony Towns writes ("Re: Being part of a community and behaving"):
> "Steve, as long as bugs like [1] are not fixed in systemd-shim, I'm not
> going to make it the first alternative. Installing a half-broken logind
> whould be a disservice to our users."
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=746578#27
I'm sorry that the TC decision here has caused the social fallout that
it has. It's a shame that the init system many of our users are going
to be relying on will be lacking Tollef's excellent contributions.
But:
A criticism seems to be that the TC getting involved, or deciding, was
premature, because the systemd maintainers would have applied this
patch themselves if they had been asked nicely, or something ?
I think that after a refusal from the maintainers, with the bug tagged
wontfix, anyone is entitled to refer the matter to the TC. It has
often happened that someone has referred a bug to the TC and after
some discussion it turns out that the maintainers were convinced, and
made the proposed change.
Indeed, after the unequivocal messages from the systemd maintainers, I
think badgering them might have been inappropriate. If you don't like
a decision someone else has made, and it doesn't appear that there is
much more room for discussion, you should either live with the
decision, or escalate it. We would like to avoid browbeating.
During the discussion of the TC bug no-one from the systemd team
suggested that they might review their decision in the light of the
arguments that were presented in the TC. And indeed there is no
requirement that a maintainer should do so.
However, I think the TC is entitled to assume, during its
deliberations, that maintainers' previously stated decisions and
opinions continue to stand until the maintainers withdraw or
contradict them. (I think the TC is also entitled to assume that the
maintainers, once made aware that an issue has been referred to the
TC, will provide any technical input that they feel is necessary.)
As the TC discussions go through the various stages of fact-finding,
to tentative conclusions, to draft resolutions, the maintainers
continue to have the opportunity to see the facts and arguments being
presented in the discussion, and to avoid a formal decision by
providing a satisfactory solutions to the problem at hand.
> The bug referenced as "[1]" above was #756076 which was set as grave on
> 18th September, with a fix developed upstream on the 5th Nov, which was
> then uploaded to Debian on the same day (by Martin Pitt):
This seems to be a different question. The criticism here would be
that TC decision was technically incorrect, because at the time we
voted (or at least at the time we called for votes) #756076 was still
outstanding and ought to have been a blocker for changing the
dependencies ?
My understanding is that installing systemd-shim and indeed cgmanager
is supposed to be harmless under systemd. So while swapping the
dependencies would mean that some users who are going to be using
systemd would get cgmanager installed, cgmanager would not (by
default) be started, and those users would therefore not experience
#756076.
Therefore ISTM that #756076 was not a reason not to swap the
dependencies.
Serge Hallyn corroborates that here:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=755977#32
which we discussed here
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=746578#239
which was immediately before the TC CFV.
Ian.
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