Re: Decision GFDL

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

Steve Langasek <vorlon@netexpress.net> wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 31, 2003 at 12:26:04AM -0400, Walter Landry wrote:
> > Based on faulty information, the Release Manager told them not to
> > bother.  Now they should bother.
> 
> Where was this said?  The only statement I've seen is that these
> bugs will not be considered blockers for sarge.  Do you mean to say
> that the maintainers of all the affected packages only fix the RC
> bugs against their packages, and ignore everything else?

That is why they are called release-critical.  They have to be fixed
before the release.  Other bugs do not.  The release manager has some
discretion to decide that a bug isn't _really_ release critical, but I
didn't think he could just ignore the Social Contract.

That is my big question, which no one seems to want to answer.  Is it
ok for the Release Manager to ignore the Social Contract?  These
documents are not going to become free in the forseeable future.

> The severity of these bugs has not been changed; they are still
> considered serious bugs, and they still need to be fixed.

And yet they are somehow not really serious bugs, since serious bugs
are, by definition, release-critical.

> Nothing stops the maintainers from working on them between now and
> the freeze date if they have the time for it.  Nothing stops you
> from working on them, if you feel this is important to resolve prior
> to release.  But if no one is willing to work on them, your claim
> that there won't be a significant delay seems rather ephemeral.

The problem is not manpower, it is willpower.  gcc, for example, has
already done most of the work to fix this bug.  All that really needs
to be done is for someone with authority to tell them to apply it.

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu