On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 10:46:05AM -0400, gregor herrmann wrote:
During the last weeks we've seen two changes: * debhelper compat level 8 (still experimental) prefers Module::Build over EUMM. We've traditionally expressed a build dependency on M::B by using "perl (>= 5.10) | libmodule-build-perl". When we want to change to compat 8 we either need to add this all over the place or accept the fact that the package won't build in oldstable (perl 5.8). - Several people on IRC said they were fine with dropping support for etch at this point in time. * The second development is that oldstable is removed from the archive now, which supports the point of not supporting it any more :) I've been thinking about this a bit and I'd like to write down a general rule for the future. Our group policy seems the appropriate place to add that and how long we want to support building on old releases (if possible by the dependencies, of course).
I wholeheartedly welcome such policy regarding support for backporting. Beware, however, that it also affects debhelper compatibility level!In the past, I have discretely cursed the aggressive use of debhelper 7, as I needed a bunch of Perl libraries backported to Etch[1] and had to repackage completely using CDBS.
Contrary to debhelper, CDBS-based packages can in most cases be backported as-is, and in the few cases where very recent CDBS features are required, CDBS itself is easy to backport (unlike debhelper).
I therefore recommend to include in backport-support recommendations to only bump debhelper compat level when really needed, and whenever possible stick to the compat level supported in oldstable.
Kind regards, - Jonas[1] Skolelinux in Germany depend on the Perl-based LDAP admin tool CipUX which I have been packaging for Debian and backporting for Lenny and Etch until recently when Etch support was dropped and I only need backporting to Lenny.
-- * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt * Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/ [x] quote me freely [ ] ask before reusing [ ] keep private
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