Re: Bug#373704: sort -k does not count fields the same as gnu sort
severity 373704 important
thanks
On Sun, Jan 14, 2007 at 02:04:11AM +0100, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> Steve Langasek, le Sat 13 Jan 2007 13:10:25 -0800, a écrit :
> > "Potentially leading to random breakage" doesn't really justify a critical
> > severity when there are a limited number of packages making use of busybox
> > (and busybox sort in particular). Does this bug actually break d-i, and if
> > so how?
> It used to break the execution order of some scripts. Currently it
> doesn't, but it could very well break again.
Well, if it currently doesn't then that seems to not be a reason to treat it
as RC.
On Sun, Jan 14, 2007 at 03:39:09AM +0100, Frans Pop wrote:
> On Saturday 13 January 2007 22:10, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > "Potentially leading to random breakage" doesn't really justify a
> > critical severity when there are a limited number of packages making
> > use of busybox (and busybox sort in particular). Does this bug
> > actually break d-i, and if so how?
> Let me start with a little quote:
> <ifvoid> fjp: why is it rc?
> <fjp> ifvoid: Basically because it can cause unexpected breakage in
> anything that uses busybox sort.
> <fjp> ifvoid: My feeling is that the behavior now is even worse than the
> original bug.
> <fjp> ifvoid: Not sure if RMs would agree though.
> <aj> unexpected breakage in busybox sort sounds horrible
> * Maulkin nods
True, unexpected breakage is horrible, but currently the only material
breakage seems to not only be expected, but worked around. It may make
busybox sort unsuitable as a POSIX sort replacement, but that's simply not
anything that needs to be release-critical.
> "Critical" is possibly too high if you just consider Debian packages.
> However, if you also consider use of busybox in embedded devices where
> scripts written for GNU sort are being run (which apparently is a big
> market for Debian), it could still be justified.
> It can at least potentially break unrelated software.
- software that invokes busybox isn't unrelated
- folks that are changing the Debian base system by replacing bash and/or
coreutils with busybox are bound to do their own regression testing when
deploying such changes; we shouldn't expect that every such bug that may
affect people who are *modifying* Debian be treated as release-critical
for Debian itself.
> I think "not suitable for release" is quite justified in this case,
> especially as the sort function in Sarge works better. The original fix
> for this bug has caused sorting with a delimiter (-t option) to work
> worse than it did.
I disagree about it being unsuitable for release, but feel free to NMU for
this, a patch seems to be available now and I have no problem letting such
a fix through into etch.
Thanks,
--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon@debian.org http://www.debian.org/
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