Re: Auto-update for sid? Auto-backport?

[Jonathan Dowland <jmtd@debian.org>]

I took issue with Adrian's phrasing around "disgrace", and had intended
to reply, but didn't.

On Mon, Nov 20, 2017 at 01:20:06PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> I would much rather have a minimally maintained package, from Debian,
> in my stable release, than have to roll my own.  This is particularly
> true if I don't know yet whether the thing is what I want.  Trying
> something out from "apt-get" in stretch is a lot less work and a lot
> less risky than git cloning some random url and then blundering about
> trying to get the thing going.

This is in part because there's a broad perception that if a piece of
software has been packaged, it meets a certain standard of quality.
However, that perception is based on experience, and the more bad
packages in the archive, the less people's experiences will match this
perception, and the perception/Debian's reputation will change.

On many occasions, when I've been looking for a piece of software for a
problem I haven't worked with before, I've installed the half-dozen or
so unfamiliar packages from Debian because I shared this perception, and
on many occasions I've found the quality of the packaged programs to be
appalling, the programs to be essentially unusable, or to very likely
result in user data corruption.

One occasion I remember vividly because I was so frustrated that the
software had been packaged at all. I recall finding and filing a
half-dozen or so data corruption bugs within 30 minutes of evaluating
the software, all of which were completely ignored. I don't want to
talk specifics here because I don't want to out any particular
maintainers, this was just an acute example of a wider problem.

So I can share Adrian's frustration (if not his phrasing), although in
my case I'm talking about the quality of the software being packaged
more than the quality of the packaging. A maintainer still needs to make
a responsible decision as to whether the software is sufficiently high
quality to be a fit for Debian.

--

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⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Jonathan Dowland
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