Re: Python talks at DebConf
On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 23:01, anatoly techtonik <techtonik@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 9:57 PM, Sandro Tosi <morph@debian.org> wrote:
>>
>> Indeed, that's what we expect from the python maintainer:
>>
>> - understand what changes between to major release
>> - prepare a draft for the transition, checking packages that brake
>> (reporting bugs and hopefully patches)
>> - get consensus from the project (release team for formal ACK on
>> starting the transition and from python community to support the
>> transition with uploads and so)
>>
>> none of that has happened in the past.
>>
>>> Why is upgrading to a new default Python so difficult, more than 19
>>> months after 2.6 was released?
>>
>> because we have a quite "original" python maintainer, that doesn't
>> care at all about Debian.
>>
>> On the other hand, he does care (to a certain point) about Ubuntu
>> using the latest python version possible, of course not handling all
>> the problems that that version can cause.
>>
>> Ah, just for the sake clarity: the Debian and Ubuntu python
>> maintainers are the same person.
>
> It is easy to blame one person. Let's say Debian doesn't have any
> Python maintainers at all and the person from Ubuntu has to do the
> job.
Python interpreters maintainer is the same person in Debian and
Ubuntu, Matthias Klose, so your phase is a non-sense. Matthias cares
only of Ubuntu because he gains his money from Canonical, the
commercial wing over Ubuntu, and leaves to Debian only a minimum
amount of time and attention (see python2.5 v2.5.5 upload, that didn't
even installs....).
> Anyway, it is a fail of Debian to provide a workflow that a
> person (or a group of people) is capable to follow to make us (Python
> folks) happy about maintaining Debian servers that host our Python
> applications.
I don't get what you're trying to express here...
Either you package your applications for debian, and so you have to
dig into debian packaging details, or else
if you need 2.6 and you can't have it, than blame the python
maintainer that's unable/unwilling to support users requests, not the
debian community (yes, debian-python is not the right place to
complain about python2.6 not being in unstable for more than a year
since its release, for example) that faces the same problem of an
unrensponsive maintainer as you do.
>>> Is the problem using an old version of a package while the more recent
>>> upstream versions have already fixed the compatibility problems?
>>
>> yep, sometimes, but there are also new upstream release that drop
>> support to a version to add support to a newer one, and we have to
>> support them both.
>
> You need a Debian compat Python layer then. Look at SCons for an example.
I don't think so.
>>> the future transition to 2.7 and eventually to 3.x could be less
>>> labour-intensive than the one to 2.6.
>>
>> Well, we hope several things will change on the python side of Debian;
>> let's see if our dreams will come true.
>
> Do you have a roadmap to see if this hope should be shared or abandoned?
see http://bugs.debian.org/573745
Regards,
--
Sandro Tosi (aka morph, morpheus, matrixhasu)
My website: http://matrixhasu.altervista.org/
Me at Debian: http://wiki.debian.org/SandroTosi
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