Re: Bug#758234: it's actively harmful
On 29/10/14 12:41, Santiago Vila wrote:
> If we are going to take that route, we might just make all libraries
> optional as a general rule.
That seems reasonable to me, with the possible exception of the few
libraries that could justify their own priority via the "wtf, why isn't
this installed?" rule of thumb, like libc6.
>> [footnote: This ensures that a
>> # high-priority package transitioning to a new library dependency
>> # does not result in both the old and new libraries being installed
>> # on new systems, due to the old library's priority remaining high.]
>
> However, I don't like the wording of the footnote.
>
> Why would the old library's priority remain high to begin with?
To have a concrete example to talk about, let's say cron (Priority:
important) moves from using libstuff0 to using libstuff1.
If libstuff0 and libstuff1 both come from a "libstuff" source package,
but you have more than one apt source - e.g. stable on a mostly testing
system - then your apt can still see the older libstuff0 binaries, with
the "important" priority that was appropriate when cron/stable depended
on them. I believe this means it won't automatically get rid of libstuff0?
If libstuff0 and libstuff1 are in parallel stuff0, stuff1 source
packages (like Gtk2 and Gtk3), it is not clear to me how the ftp team
should be expected to know that libstuff0 should be demoted from
important to optional, or when would be the correct time to do so.
It could equally well be a core package transitioning from one
command-line tool to another (dpkg moving from lzma to xz), or from
command-line tool to library (dpkg's tar.xz support again), or changing
its implementation to not need one of its old dependencies (systemd used
to require libdbus-1-3, but has switched to its own D-Bus implementation).
> It sounds as "Lack of manpower in the FTP team forced us to change the
> rules about package priorities, since they did not change priorities
> often enough".
Is your intention that the maintainer of libstuff would track the
transition and buildd status, somehow work out when libstuff0 no longer
qualified for important priority, and file ftp.debian.org bugs to demote
it? Or that the ftp team determine (in some hopefully automated way)
that libstuff0 no longer qualifies for important, and demote it? Or what?
S
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