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Re: dpkg nmu



On Sun, 8 Jun 2003 15:40, Glenn McGrath wrote:
> Adam Heath <doogie@debian.org> wrote:
> > > - #165770
> >
> > Hardly rc.
> >
> > No reasons to nmu dpkg exist.
> >
> > Now, go away.
>
> Why are you discouraging people from fix bugs ?

Adam's message wasn't overly polite, but the content makes sense.

NMUing a package is not something that should be done routinely.  It should 
only be done for serious bugs.  The criteria for how serious a bug should be 
to deserve a NMU depends on the importance of the package.  NMUing my Postal 
package (as has been done a couple of times) is no big deal.  In the event of 
a NMU breaking things it's unlikely that anyone will suffer any serious harm 
due to being unable to benchmark their mail server.

NMUing dpkg is a very serious issue, a bug could potentially leave machines in 
a state where they were unable to be automatically fixed.  This is not 
something to be taken lightly.

> We are all on the same team.

In many team games there are certain positions such as "goal-keeper" which can 
only be played by one person.  If you believe that you are better able to do 
that job than the current goal-keeper then you have to talk to the captain or 
the coach, you don't just run in and say "I'm taking over the goal-keeper 
job".

Team play goes both ways, sometimes you have to let someone else take over if 
you can't handle the job, sometimes you have to refrain from interfering when 
someone else is doing the job.


PS  You will note that I have refrained from even discussing the possibility 
of NMUing dpkg, even though I have maintained my own patched version for 
myself and other SE Linux users for over a year.  So far I have even 
refrained from creating a new package dpkg-se which could be installed by SE 
Linux users as an alternative to the regular dpkg until such time as the 
regular package provides the functionality that is required.

-- 
http://www.coker.com.au/selinux/   My NSA Security Enhanced Linux packages
http://www.coker.com.au/bonnie++/  Bonnie++ hard drive benchmark
http://www.coker.com.au/postal/    Postal SMTP/POP benchmark
http://www.coker.com.au/~russell/  My home page



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