Re: Debconf QA BOF summary / handling of orphaned packages
Hi Thomas,
I love the work you do for Debian but I hate the positions you are
taking since you left the project. I have the feeling that you have an
extremist point of view and that you are not willing to try to understand
the other side of the discussion.
On Sun, 02 Aug 2009, Thomas Viehmann wrote:
> Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> >The reason why I think that moving some of the orphaned packages to
> >experimental is a good idea, is because often, you run into packages
> >that are still useful to a small number of users, have no alternative,
> >still basically work, but have been orphaned for >2 years with nobody
> >willing to maintain them. In that case, we should not release with such
> >packages, but it should still be available (though unsupported) to the
> >users.
> What is experimental about these packages? Experimental has a
> purpose. It is not keeping unsupported packages around.
What's experimental in packages put in experimental just because testing
is frozen?
The naming of the repository is not the only thing that should be
taken into account...
Experimental is:
- auto-built
- still part of debian (packages there show up in the PTS for instance)
- mirrored
- packages can still be updated by DD
- not supported by the security team
So a package that has been orphaned for some months already but that is
still working could be moved to it in the hope that someone will come and
maintain it. Once a package is removed of Debian, it's not here anymore and
we're not looking for anyone to adopt it.
So this solution is a nice intermediary solution between continue to
maintain the package in sid by the QA team and remove the package
completely.
And I see no point in trying to convince us not to do this for some
packages where this makes sense (because we don't want to remove
it as it still has a high-popcon).
> I cannot see how turning experimental "maintained packages that can
> use a test drive before general consumption" into "pile of broken,
> obsolete packages nobody ever wants to see again" is something that
> benefits Debian at large.
Not all orphaned packages are broken and obsolete. So just stop asserting
this as a general rule.
> where packages rot without ever seeing any attention. Eventually
> experimental will become as useless as sourceforge as a source of
> working software. Improving Debian? Only if your only measure is
> number of packages, probably. Other than that? No.
The packages in experimental would still follow the same process... if
they ever start accumulating RC bugs or are there for too long, they will
be removed. The point is to stop keeping orphaned packages for too long in
testing/sid...
Because by keeping them in testing/sid, you make it harder to remove them
later as other packages might start depending on them and we make it
harder to keep testing/sid RC bug free since we have more packages that
must be taken care of by the QA team.
Cheers,
--
Raphaël Hertzog
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