Re: alien, xfree86, and other bugs
> > If only bug fixes could be allowed in, this would be a good idea.
> > Unfortunately, this isn't a practical possibility. Every time a new
> > package is uploaded to fix a bug, there is the possibility of introducing
> > new bugs either in the "patch" code, other code that got added for some
> > reason, or even in the packaging itself.
> >
> > At some point, there just isn't time for the testing group to validate
> > new package before release. At least twice I've had to remove "simple
> > major bug fixes" because they were compiled against libc6 from hamm.
> >
>
> I see your point. But could there be another solution (at least
> for a periods of major distribution changes like a.out->elf and
> libc5->libc6)?
>
> I thouhgt of having in addition of stable, unstable, and frozen
> distributions the one called, say, "unsupported". This distribution
> could be used for uploading all the bugfixes in "stable", including
> even new upstream bugfix releases. They will surely be tested after
> the upload and, after sufficient time could become the part of
> debian 1.3.9 or something like that.
One of the major problems with this is who is going to test it. If
the vast majority of the developers (which includes the testing group)
have already moved over to the new (libc6) system, then who is going to
do the rigorous testing on the "unsupported" packages?
Also, ideally all new release-ready packages should be built and tested
on a system that only uses released packages. Since developers will be
tracking the "unstable" tree, such systems are difficult to come by. This
makes bug-fixing more complicated as well.
> It would be also a big deal to me (and I think I am not alone) to have a
> libc5 version of the coming Xfree86 3.3 release there. This would allow
> the users with previously unsupported videocards to have the X istalled
> along with much more stable the rest of the distribution.
X is so big and has so many bugs that I don't think this is possible. To
do this would involve putting a large amount of effort that, in my opinion,
would be better spent towards improving the version in Hamm.
I agree that it would be nice to support the extra video cards, but there
is nothing stopping users from upgrading to the X packages in Hamm. Libc5
and libc6 coexist quite nicely from a user's point of view, so having an
X server from Hamm based on libc6 and everything else from Bo should not
be a problem.
Having a user track X from Hamm will also probably mean better support and
faster response than tracking a parallel version in Bo.
Brian
( bcwhite@verisim.com )
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