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Re: Debian i386 architecture now requires a 686-class processor



On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 01:54:04PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> If someone has time and willingness, reviewing the contents of NEWS.Debian
> across all packages for the stable -> testing delta before the release
> sounds like a very useful thing to do.

>From what I've seen, this is very close to our problem with Recommends: --
those pointless NEWS.Debian _do_ make sense "locally" -- for a direct user
of the package in question.  If you're, say, coding something with a
library, you're interested when that library changed its API in an
incompatible way.  On the other hand, if you merely use something that
depends on the library, you couldn't care less.

> A great volunteer task to help with the release!

I'm afraid we'd need to come up with some guidelines first, especially with
the above issue in mind.

You can for start with packages you have installed:
zless /usr/share/doc/*/NEWS.Debian*


adequate
   only for a direct user
alsa-utils
   only for a direct user
amd64-microcode
   niche news
apt
   probably valid
apt-listchanges
   sneakily worded "won't work in common situations"
autoconf
   only for a direct user (API changes)
btrbk
   valid -- everyone needs to rewrite their configs
ca-certificates
   spam that belongs in the changelog
ccache
   not relevant (old data will silently expire anyway)
chrony
   valid.  Multiple entries, of varying relevance.
llvm-*
   changelog material
coreutils
   niche news
cron
   niche news
curl
   spam
d-conf
   only for a direct user
dctrl-tools
   spam (apt does this 100% transparently)
debian-keyring
   very niche news
devscripts
   minor behaviour change
dirmngr
   only for a direct user
docbook-xsl
   speculation about future changes...
doomsday
   documenting a bug (one that's easy to fix with some debugging)
ceve
   niche ever for a direct user
dosfstools
   documents a likely breakage, not interesting for a non-user
exim4
   relevant for an admin, spam for those who don't know what a MTA is
exo
   a restart-on-upgrade quirk
findutils
   niche news
fonts-vlgothic
   file rename, 99.9% users use it via fontconfig anyway...
wine
   valid
gconf
   a restart-on-upgrade quirk
[here I got bored]


As you can see, most of the news are relevant only for an immediate user
while being utterly pointless for those who installed package X only via
a dependency.  But, how do you tell them apart?  What about the case you
both use X directly and as a dependency?

And it needs to be stressed: being relevant only for an immediate users
means the news is still _relevant_ for them.


-- 
How to exploit the Bible for weight loss:
Pr28:25: he that putteth his trust in the ʟᴏʀᴅ shall be made fat.


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