Bug#722262: Packages removed from testing when taken over by another source in sid

[Jérôme Vouillon <jerome.vouillon@pps.univ-paris-diderot.fr>]

On 09/09/2013 17:03, Adam D. Barratt wrote:
> On 2013-09-09 15:44, Jérôme Vouillon wrote:
> > It seems Britney will happily remove from testing any binary package
> > taken over in sid by another source package when its initial source 
> > package is
> > removed or updated, instead of waiting for the new version of the 
> > package to be
> > ready. I'm wondering whether this is an expected behavior of Britney.
>
> So far as I can see, you're misdiagnosing the cause(s) of the issues 
> you're seeing. It has nothing to do with whether the binary packages 
> have been "taken over", simply whether they exist in the version of 
> the package migrating.

Thanks for your comments! I understand what Britney is doing, but I 
don't really understand the rational for that. I'm wondering when it is 
useful to automatically remove a binary package from testing while a new 
version of this package is present in sid. Shouldn't one take this new 
version of the package in sid as a hint that the package is still useful 
in testing?

> > For instance, package proftpd-mod-geoip was removed from testing
> > together with its source package on July 1, while the new version of 
> > the package build from
> > the source package proftpd-dfsg is still stuck in sid.
>
> This was because the source package was removed from unstable on the 
> same day. When a source package is removed from unstable, britney will 
> automatically try and remove it from testing as well; if there are no 
> reverse-dependencies keeping it in testing then that will succeed.

Here is the whole picture, as far as I understand. The ProFTPD source 
code now includes the GeoIP module (which used to be distributed 
separately). So, the new version of proftpd-dfsg uploaded to sid now 
produces a binary package proftpd-mod-geoip. Once this binary package 
was built in sid, the source package proftpd-mod-geoip was automatically 
removed by auto-cruft (obsolete source package). Then, since the source 
package was removed from sid, Britney proceeded immediately to remove 
the source and binary packages proftpd-mod-geoip from testing. 
Meanwhile, the new binaries were still not old enough to move to testing 
(and was further delayed due to RC bugs and a new upload). I'm not sure 
this is what the maintainer of proftpd-mod-geoip intended.

About the same thing happened with ulogd/ulogd2.

So, basically, when the binary packages produced by some source package 
are all taken over by another package, these binaries will usually be 
automatically removed from testing some time before the new version of 
the binaries are ready. And I don't really see what the maintainer of 
the packages should do to avoid that.

Regards,

Jérôme