Re: contrib

[Remco Blaakmeer <remco-blaakmeer@quicknet.nl>]

On Fri, 23 Apr 1999, mike shupp wrote:

> On Fri, 23 Apr 1999, Sami Dalouche wrote:
> 
> > I don't understand this :
> .
> >  2.1.3 The contrib section  
> >  [...]
> >      * packages which we don't want to support because they are too
> >        buggy, and [...]
> > 
> > These package, if they are non stable, must be in the unstable directory, not the contrib. Am I right ?
> > 
> 
> The contents of "Unstable" eventually become the next major release
> (Potato, or Debian 2.2, or whatever) once they all work together in
> reasonably bug-free fashion.  Buggy "contrib" files might be too
> buggy to fit into the official part of the next disty, or simply
> may lack a developer who has the time to bring them up to speed.
> 
> Buggy and unstable aren't synonyms, in other words.

'Contrib' is even more not a synonym for 'buggy' than 'unstable' is.
Contrib is for packages that have a 'free' license but depend on packages
that are non-free.

Packages that are so buggy that they aren't even unusable, should go into
'experimental'. Packages that are usable but buggy can go into 'unstable'.
If any release critical bugs have been filed against a package, the
package maintainer can ask the release manager to exclude the package from
the release. It will then remain in 'unstable' when the release is done.

I'd think packages that are too buggy shouldn't be released at all, not
even into contrib (_especially_ not into contrib[1]). Perhaps Debian
Policy is wrong? Or am I missing some point here?

Remco

[1] IMNSHO, whether a package goes into main, contrib or non-free should
depend on license issues only.
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