testing process broken

[Bill Wohler <wohler@newt.com>]

  The process by which software gets into testing needs to be much
  more rigorous than it is. Consider:

    xlibs won't upgrade because of bugs in ssh-askpass, sndconfig
    and/or playmidi that are "fixed in unstable." Why then, did xlibs
    get moved to testing and not the others?

    reportbug won't install because it depends on python-newt which
    depends on a newer version of libnewt0 than is installed in
    testing. Why did python-newt get moved to testing and not
    libnewt0?

    wmakerconf-data and wmaker can't both exist together in testing
    because wmakerconf-data is version 0.62 and depends on wmaker 0.62
    but the version of wmaker is 0.61. Why did the new version of
    wmakerconf-data get moved to testing but not wmaker?

  These are just but a few of the examples off the top of my head. The
  list continues and I'm sure others have more examples.

  I would argue that the latter two of these problems should not exist
  in testing. The process by which software gets into testing (and
  eventually to stable) should ensure that the entire distribution is
  self-sufficient. No software shall be installed that depends on
  nonexistent software. This should not be a difficult problem as much
  of the software already exists in apt, dpkg, and probably others.

  The problem presented in the xlibs example is a little more
  difficult to overcome, but I believe sophisticated CM tools provide
  for this. While you wouldn't want xlibs to depend on an unrelated
  package such as ssh-askpass, you do want to capture this information
  to suppress upgrades until the unrelated software is fixed. Perhaps
  an Depends-If-Installed header might provide a stopgap solution
  although an external database might be more appropriate.

  I *do* appreciate the Debian maintainers that bring us the best
  Linux distribution of all, and I *do* appreciate that testing isn't
  as stable as stable. However, our time is better spent finding
  legitimate bugs, rather than errors that could have been
  prevented/found by software.

--
Bill Wohler <wohler@newt.com>  http://www.newt.com/wohler/  GnuPG ID:610BD9AD
Maintainer of comp.mail.mh FAQ and mh-e. Vote Libertarian!
If you're passed on the right, you're in the wrong lane.