Re: Updated proposal for improving the FTP NEW process

[Adrian Bunk <bunk@debian.org>]

On Tue, Mar 06, 2018 at 11:40:52PM +0000, Holger Levsen wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 06, 2018 at 05:54:55PM +0100, Adam Borowski wrote:
> > With my one of most active sponsors hat on: the current policy is that a
> > version that has never hit the archive must not have a separate changelog
> > entry, unless there are non-negligible users (such as a derivative, upstream
> > repository or at least the package being deployed to multiple users at a
> > workplace).  A past history is more acceptable than repeated attempts for an
> > upload.
> > 
> > This is what I was taught, and what I not only recommend but also require of
> > sponsorees.  There seems to be a concensus on -mentors that this is the
> > right way.
> 
> with my sponsoring hat on, I will be unhappy if someone reuses version
> numbers and I will ask to never do this again. I very much agree with
> Ian's position that this is bad.
> 
> As a sponsor, I'm a non-negligible user and I want to sensible be able
> to not having to again review stuff I already have reviewed.
> 
> If you have put it on mentors.d.n, it's out in the public.

As a strict policy this would create more problems than it solves.

A version is published to our users when it gets accepted into
the archive.

Readable information in apt-listchanges is IMHO more important
than theoretical discussions around whether something submitted
to mentors.d.n is public.

A changelog is also permanent, and people might read it decades later 
for understanding packaging decisions - already today it is not uncommon 
to check 20 year old changelog entries for that.

For either of the above a weird version history or 10 Debian revisions 
until a new maintainer got her first packaging attempt correct are
not optimal.

Or a more funny issue:
How would you notice a version reuse in all cases?
A package uploaded to mentors.d.n. adopting a package with
"New maintainer" as only change is usually a reject. If some DD does
the same years later, there is no record anywhere that this version
was already taken by some random person from the internet who once
upon a time uploaded it to mentors.d.n.

> cheers,
> 	Holger

cu
Adrian

-- 

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       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
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