Tomcat 10 packaging
Hi all,
For Debian Bookworm I'd like to replace Tomcat 9 with Tomcat 10. But
this time instead of introducing a "tomcat10" package, I wonder if we
could instead create a version-less "tomcat" package and keep it for the
next major releases.
Pros:
- no need to create a new package, replacing tomcat<n> with tomcat<n+1>
everywhere, and then wait for the NEW queue
- unique packaging repository
- no more transition, replacing the libtomcat<n>-java dependency with
libtomcat<n+1>-java everywhere (currently about 15 packages)
- no need to install tomcat<n+1> and transfer /etc/tomcat<n> to
/etc/tomcat<n+1> when upgrading Debian
- the log files and the deployed web applications also remain at the
same place
Cons:
- the unique repository will probably have multiple upstream branches
when Tomcat upgrades are uploaded to oldstable as part of the LTS, this
may be tricky with gbp
- if the new configuration files are incompatible with the previous
format, upgrading Debian may break the Tomcat instance. Either it no
longer starts, or some configuration elements or features no longer
work. With separate packages, the system upgrade is unlikely to break
Tomcat, but the user may forget to upgrade it and will keep an
unsupported instance that is no longer receiving security updates.
What do you think?
Emmanuel Bourg
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