Suggestion [ Was: Re: Gnome to be removed from debian? (retracted) ]
Here's a suggestion on how problems like the gnome stuff or other
related stuff could be avoided:
Uploads go to
/dists/experimental
People how are willing to use the package can try it out and report
back via mail or http. Something similar to bug could be set up to
make it easy to report back.
The resulting reports would state the useability of the package. The
reports should tell wether the installation works and whether a quick
test of the package worked fine.
If several people, say 5 to 10, have tested the package and reported
back that it worked fine, is it automatically moved to
"/dists/unstable" for a general testing. Before the package is
actually moved, it is checked that all packages it depends on are in
"/dists/unstable". If not, the tester could be asked to also comment
on the depended packages, since they must have tested them too, or the
dependent packages could be assumed to be halfway working and be moved
as well. I would opt that all packages that are needed by a checked
package get a lower threshold, so that less people have to check
it. The reason is that the depending packages will be checked by the
main packages also.
In "/dist/unstable" are then probably working. The more people are
needed to report back before moving a package to "/dists/unstable" the
higher the probability that it will work fine.
Together with that change the scripts reponsible for moving and
removing packages and sources should be changed:
- Sources are kept as long as any package from that source is still around.
- Source dependencies are introduced and made policy. (A script
detecting those is on the way).
- Packages are kept as long as some other package depends on it.
- Packages are kept as long as any source depends on it.
The above is neccessary because of the GPL. Also it ensures that the
disribution is in a working state for all archs and not only for i386.
May the Source be with you.
Goswin
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