Re: post-release package update policy
Lars Wirzenius writes:
>Matthew Swift: "Re: post-release package update policy" (Oct 21, 13:14):
>> I'm not sure what's wrong with having an evolving system called Debian.
>
>The problem is that at times it is possible to have a set of packages on
>the ftp sites that do not work together. Say a sitation where ncurses
>is split into smaller packages (this is a hypothetical example), and dselect
>is upgraded to the new version. The dselect maintainer gets his new
>ncurses packages from the ncurses maintainer directly, installs them, removes
>the .deb files (since he can always get them from the ftp site and his disk
>is too full), upgrades dselect, and uploads the new dselect. Meanwhile,
>the ncurses maintainer has sudden trouble uploading his packages to the
>ftp site, gets angry, is careless while driving home, and is put into
>a hospital for four weeks in a coma. Oops.
A user downloading dpkg won't be able to install it because of the
Requires: ncurses (>x.y)
dependency which Ian J. will certainly include.
A variaton of dpkg can make sure that package releases are moved from the
incoming directory into public view only after their prerequistes.
I'm not arguing against a fixed release version though. IMHO it will make new
users and CD-ROM vendors happy
-- Siggy (the middle S.)
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