Re: chromium not in Squeeze: a bit of communication needed?

[Michael Gilbert <michael.s.gilbert@gmail.com>]

On Wed, 08 Sep 2010 16:55:40 +0200, Sven Joachim wrote:
> On 2010-09-08 16:10 +0200, Michael Gilbert wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, 8 Sep 2010 13:48:49 +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> >> I've been following the chromium-browser saga a bit, who has ended up
> >> with the removal of the package from testing [1,2]. While I'm a
> >> chromium-browser user myself, and hence I'm saddened of seeing it go,
> >> I'm not here to question the choice as I'm sure it's been made as the
> >> right one and that it hasn't been an easy one to make.
> >> 
> >>   [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2010/09/msg00582.html
> >>   [2] http://www.iuculano.it/en/linux/debian/chromium-browser-removed-from-testing/
> >> 
> >> Still I think we need, as Debian, to communicate about that choice. As
> >> you can imagine, I particularly care about that as sooner or later
> >> someone will ask me « why Debian doesn't ship Chromium? », and I'd like
> >> to know the right answer to that question, so that I can provide it,
> >> rather than offering my personal view only :-)
> >> That's all I care about. [3]
> >
> > I think that this need is justification to declare backports "officially
> > supported by the debian project".  Thus when asked this question, you
> > can point to the fact that chromium is indeed supported on stable, just
> > via a different model than folks are used to.  That is of course
> > assuming someone is willing to support the backport.
> 
> It also means that users need to be taught how to change the apt pinning
> priority for backports, because in the default configuration backported
> packages are never updated automatically.  Which is very bad from a
> security point of view.

So, I think the solution for that is relatively straightforward.  I
think that an important part of making backports official would be
adding an option to the installer that automatically sets up backports
in the sources.list with a reasonable priority (similar to what is
done for volatile and security now).

Best wishes,
Mike