Re: 2.6.8 release
On Mon, Aug 02, 2004 at 10:52:44AM -0400, Andres Salomon wrote:
> On Mon, 02 Aug 2004 09:09:56 +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
>
> >
> > With proper cooperation from the ftp-masters, this could happen much faster. I
> > have asked in the past that the kernel packages get the same favorite
> > treatment as the d-i packages, but nobody ever bothered to react on this.
> >
>
> This is a big *if*.
Which is why i am CCing debian-release.
> >> c) it takes 10 days to get through sid into testing (ie, there's no
> >> problems w/ the initial 2.6.8-1 release).
> >
> > There should be no major problem to upload with priority high, and use 2 days
> > for this, since there is not 2.6.8 package in testing which would break
> > because of this, the 2.6.7 package would stay. I asked Jens to do high
> > priority upload for 2.6.7-3, and the package ended in testing 3 days later, he
> > forgot to do the same for the 2.6.7-4 upload though, and so it will probably
> > miss the d-i beta release :/
> >
>
> This is another big *if*. Sure, if we set priority=high, it could only
> take 2 days.. unless there's an RC bug. Or we need to do a rebuild. Or
> any number of things.
We can always ask the RMs to hand hint the packages, so there should be no
major problem. The most difficult would be to convince joeyh to do a new 2.6.8
d-i rebuild.
> >> If there's a problem, we need to do another kernel-source release for
> >> some reason, NEW processing takes longer than 2 weeks, 2.6.8 takes
> >> longer than a week (or two) to release, etc, we're screwed. We cut
> >> this time down by releasing rc2, or by requesting that the FTP Masters
> >> special-case kernel-*2.6.8* stuff. Which of these seems like the
> >> easier, foolproof way to do things? :)
> >
> > ftp-masters special casing 2.6.8. But an upload to experimental would be
> > still good to help pave the way to the real release, and given the
> > current subversion build system and small patches, there may even be
> > chance that the 2.6.8 release builds with few or only minor
> > modifications to the patches.
> >
>
> *blink*. Are you trying to be difficult? FTP Masters special casing
> 2.6.8 is the foolproof way? I assume you've talked w/ FTP Masters, then,
> and they're willing to do this? Otherwise, you're simply theorizing.
Yes it is the best way. Notice that Steve just became the official RM together
with Colin Watson, if i understood this well, and he wasn't doing so much
difficulties about this, so i suppose if we manage to convince him, that he
would ask the ftp-masters directly or something.
The real questions are :
a) When will 2.6.8 upstream be released.
b) How long will it be needed for us to do 2.6.8 packages for all 2.6
supporting arches.
c) Will joeyh and the rest of the d-i team do a rebuild for using the new
2.6.8 packages in order for us to drop 2.6.7.
a) is out of our hands, and the real problem here, i am rather confident that
we will manage b) on the i386 and powerpc arches, but i also believe that now
that the momentum is here, that the alpha, ia64, hppa, sparc (did i miss
someone) will be able to upgrade their patches quickly too. If this happens,
then we will be ready to have 2.6.8 kernels move to sarge, and c) will
probably depend on the result of both the schedules of a) and b), and our
capacity to convince joeyh.
> >> We should find out within the next few days when main freezes. The
> >> release people with whom I've talked w/ don't seem interested in
> >> special-casing kernel packages once main is frozen (and I can't blame
> >> them).
> >
> > I have the belief that if our kernel people believe that 2.6.8 is the
> > kernel we should use, based on the fact that security would be easier if
> > redhat is releasing with it too, and the fact that it is mostly bugfix
> > and stability improvement over 2.6.7, then i believe it is worth
> > delaying the release a few days for this. There will probably be enough
> > other stuff delaying the release that we can afford to wait for this.
>
> No, it is not worth delaying the release if we can avoid it. Hoping the
You sure of this ? This was not the impression i got when speaking with
Christoph and William.
> FTP Masters will jump to attention when we demand it is ignoring what
> history has shown us.
We were not near the release as we are today.
> Furthermore, while our kernel people may believe that 2.6.8 is the kernel
> we should use, without having users actually use it, there's no way to
> tell how stable it is. Bugfixes tend to introduce other bugs; any
> programmer can attest to that. Having 2.6.8 sitting in NEW, with no one
> using it, and then pushing it through testing in 2 days is a worse idea
> than having 2.6.8rc (or bk snapshot) sitting in experimental, then having
> 2.6.8 enter unstable immediately, with the additional time that it
> would've spent in NEW to allow for people to test it.
Bah, at worst we can have our own staging area in p.d.o or alioth, and ask for
people to test this, but i have faith that this will not be necessary this
time.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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