Charles Plessy <charles-debian-nospam@plessy.org> writes:
> Debian is growing bigger everyday. I would like to know if you think
> that it should adapt to its new size, and if yes, how can you help this
> process as a DPL.
Debian has steadily grown in the past few years, at least in respect to
the number of packages. On the other hand, from a QA point of view, it
sure looks like the amount of work spent on Debian hasn't grown as much,
leading to a lower overall packages quality. There is not much a DPL can
do about this, besides starting discussions about various aspects of
this development.
One of the things I would like to discuss (and implement at some point)
are stricter rules for the removal of packages - not because I want to
remove fewer packages than we do at this moment, but because I believe
we should kick out *more* packages. This is easier to do when you don't
need to decide on new rules on a case-by-case basis, but have fixed
rules that can be applied for each problematic package.
> In particular, I would like to know what you think about how the work of
> each DDs and teams are tied, and if the ties should get stronger or
> looser. Debian offers a lot of features, in particular security support,
> stable releases, and portage on multiple architectures.
I guess this question has something to do with your recent problems with
the MIPS architecture and your packages [1] While I understand your
concerns as package maintainer about packages being blocked from
migrating to testing, I value the efforts to port Debian to a bigger set
of architectures. Knowingly breaking packages on some architectures is
something I don't like, as it moves important issues for the release to
the end of the release cycle.
Back to your actual question, which was more general: Our package
maintainers, porter, release and QA teams need to work together closely
to make Debian as it is possible. I firmly believe that trying to remove
these dependencies can only end up in a worse Debian. One of the main
advantages Debian has over other distributions is the close integration
of a big number of packages on quite a few architectures. Installing
Debian on a s390 is as easy as installing it on your laptop or the
MIPS-based router at home - in all cases, you can expect the same
quality and using the system feels similar (well, apart from speed
limitations). This is only possible due to the relatively tight
integration we are enforcing at the moment.
Marc
Footnotes:
[1] <20080301033640.GA1185@kunpuu.plessy.org> and
<20080310012007.GC24197@kunpuu.plessy.org>
--
BOFH #212:
Of course it doesn't work. We've performed a software upgrade.
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