Re: gdm/xdm/wdm conflict
I'm really not trying to start a little war here, just have a current
problem solved in a reasonable way.
Branden Robinson <branden@ecn.purdue.edu> writes:
> You have plenty of time to chime in about how other package maintainers
> need to rectify problems IMMEDIATELY, but precious little to browse the BTS
> yourself. An interesting disjunction.
I had no objection to fetching the bug numbers; I probably should have
included them in my original message since I had them right at hand
and it would save everyone time. Please don't get upset on my behalf;
it was no problem.
> Well, then, why don't you go ahead? There's no need to involve the package
> maintainers at all. It's not like they have the first clue why the display
> managers were made to conflict in the first place.
Again, there is no bug in the fact that these packages conflict. It's
a shame that they do and I think everyone agrees that it will be nice
when they no longer conflict. But the maintainers have limited time
and it's not a trivial problem to solve so it's reasonable that it
hasn't happened yet.
I'm addressing an entirely separate issue. Given that the packages
conflict, they cannot all be in the Optional section. This is a
consequence of a very important part of the Debian policy manual, and
it's a pretty easy one to fix. I'm not suggesting that we do an
end-run around the maintainers, but the job of the people who manage
the archive is to make sure that these kinds of policy problems don't
happen.
Please try and separate these two issues:
1: The packages conflict and it would be nicer for everyone if they
didn't;
2: The packages conflict and therefore they can't all be in Optional.
I'm not concerned with fixing (1) right now. I might well put time
into it myself to see if I can think of a good solution and mail in
patches; it's certainly not my style to demand that already overworked
package maintainers do things just to make me happy. They do a good
job and anything that sounds like the contrary is only my failure to
take enough time to word complex email messages correctly.
I'm trying to fix (2); it's a very important problem, and it's pretty
easily fixed. When we have figured out a good solution to (1), then
we can move all the packages into Optional, but until then, they just
can't all be there.
To summarize:
Number (1) is a wishlist item.
Number (2) is a real bug (a clear violation of an important policy
provision, and easily fixed) and I believe it is release critical, for
the user-confusion-at-install-time issue I have already outlined.
Thomas
Reply to: