[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: dual life modules



On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 02:50:25PM +0200, Niko Tyni wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 09:11:59AM +0100, Salvatore Bonaccorso wrote:

> > I wonder: Is there anything we (pkg-perl team) should keep in mind
> > when trying to fix these issues affecting dual-lifed modules? In
> > particular here, as libdigest-sha-perl got an ublock because it
> > satisfied it right straightforward.
> 
> Not sure. It's not the end of the world if a separate package version
> has a bugfix that the core version doesn't - that's usually the norm
> for all the bugs fixed upstream between those versions.
> 
> So the case probably only concerns fixes for 'major' bugs that are worth
> backporting into testing in freeze time. For those, I suppose it would
> help a bit if the person fixing it in the separate pkg-perl version
> could send us a note (the BTS should be fine; if there isn't a clone of
> the bug on the 'perl' side, one should be created.)
> 
> The Breaks: part above is somewhat academic for Debian as the change
> doesn't really affect stable users, but it might affect derivatives
> and should make some automatic checks possible (like ensuring that nobody
> releases with an older libdigest-sha-perl but a newer perl by accident.)
> Again, it's not the end of the world if they are missing.

I agree with all of this.

> In general, our handling of dual life modules isn't really optimal IMO.
> We shouldn't really be shipping the core versions of dual life modules
> at all if there's a separate package available, but rather make the core
> 'perl' packages depend on the separate ones. (Possibly excluding any in
> perl-base due to its 'Essential' status.)
> 
> The main problem with this is that it breaks the expectation of perl 5.X.Y
> giving you the particular versions of dual life modules released upstream
> with 5.X.Y (as documented by Module::Corelist, for instance.) So far,
> I've taken the conservative approach of not deviating from upstream by
> breaking that expectation.
> 
> Of course, even outside the Debian context the expectation will be
> broken the moment somebody upgrades the dual life module from CPAN,
> and I think that's generally considered a 'supported' configuration
> (whatever that means.) So maybe I'm just too shy.

This is of course the subject of occasional threads on p5p, and
the latest one touches in this area at around

http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2013/01/msg197482.html

with a discussion of how such a bare install option would be supported
upstream. I'd be much more likely to be happy with and/or go about
stripping out dual-life modules if that happens, but I don't think I
feel as strongly about it as Niko does.

Dominic.

-- 
Dominic Hargreaves | http://www.larted.org.uk/~dom/
PGP key 5178E2A5 from the.earth.li (keyserver,web,email)


Reply to: