Re: Silently breaking on upgrade
On 10/13/2009 09:50 AM, sean finney wrote:
hi,
On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 09:37:26AM -0400, The Wanderer wrote:
Under what circumstances, if any, is it considered acceptable for a
package which is installed as a dependency by the upgrade of
another package to silently break the system?
what defines "silently break the system"? that's pretty broad for a
specific answer...
"Silently", in this instance, means that A: the change happens without
any kind of notification, and B: that the change won't necessarily be
noticed immediately.
"Break" in this instance means that the parts of the system related to
the package worked fine before the installation, and will fail to work
properly afterwards. In the specific case I'm considering, it also means
that in some configurations the entire system may become unusable,
because the package in question is a window manager.
I'm hesitant to go into more specifics than that - even though I know
they're likely to be necessary - because I know that I'm not especially
objective on the subject, and I don't want to start ranting or
complaining or demanding or for that matter simply whining. I do have
quite a bit more detail to go into if need be, but if the question can
be addressed before that detail is provided, I'd prefer to do things
that way.
(Also, unrelated: the Debian mailing list etiquette page says not to CC
someone on a post to the list unless specifically requested. However,
hitting Reply on a list message populates the To field only with the
previous poster's own address, and hitting Reply-To includes both
addresses, so that not sending the CC requires manually editing the
addressee list. Isn't this inconsistent?)
--
The Wanderer
Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.
Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.
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