On Wed, Jun 04, 2008 at 02:11:51PM +0000, Johannes Wiedersich wrote:
> Arguments like
>
> On 2008-06-04 15:34, Pierre Habouzit wrote:
> >> (2) To a user who wishes to use a working feature of an imperfect
> >> package, Debian is better with the imperfect package than
> >> without: MISSING PACKAGE < IMPERFECT PACKAGE < PERFECT PACKAGE.
> >> This is true even if the imperfect package has an avoidable
> >> publicized security bug.
> >
> > This user should use unstable.
>
> sound arrogant.

No it's not. A user that prefers to have broken software rather than
no software (if the option "non broken" software is absent) should use
unstable. I mean it.

You can easily use testing by default, and unstable if the program
isn't in testing, using an /etc/apt/preferences that contains:

Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 990

Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 500

Then it'll take packages from unstable if it's not in testing. You'll
have occasionally uninstalability problems when transitions are in
progress though. My answer wasn't arrogant, I'm merely annoyed at this
discussion where people want testing to be what it's not. There are
technical ways (the one I just cited is one, you can do it other ways if
you like) to cherry-pick some packages from unstable while using testing
for the rest. You absolutely want to use update-* from unstable ? fine.
Use that, you will continue to use them transparently.

But I repeat: testing is what will become the next stable. We don't
take buggy software in stable, and for <put your definition of non
essential software here> packages we *do* prefer no packages than a non
working one. If as a user you don't like this policy, then you don't
want to use stable or testing solely.

I'm sorry if in the discussion I assumed this technical solution was
obvious to the participants of the thread, it was a shortcut, not
arrogance.

--
·O· Pierre Habouzit
··O madcoder@debian.org
OOO http://www.madism.org

On Wed June 4 2008 09:36:07 Pierre Habouzit wrote:
> Package: *
> Pin: release a=testing
> Pin-Priority: 990
>
> Package: *
> Pin: release a=unstable
> Pin-Priority: 500

Downsides include:

(1) Not something a newbie should be worrying about.
(2) Bug reports from Testing+Unstable are less valuable.

An alternative approach would be for packages to be retained
in Testing for the benefit of the hundreds of thousands of
desktop and laptop users who need to use Testing, and for
the few members of the release team to use a filtered package
list. The filtered package list would become the next Stable.

This keeps Testing as it has historically been - more stable
than Unstable and the best Debian for recent hardware.

--Mike Bird


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Mike Bird wrote:
>
>An alternative approach would be for packages to be retained
>in Testing for the benefit of the hundreds of thousands of
>desktop and laptop users who need to use Testing, and for
>the few members of the release team to use a filtered package
>list. The filtered package list would become the next Stable.

Mike, your crusade to annoy the release team may be fun for you, but
it's getting tedious for the rest of us. Please give it a rest.

If you're so keen on using your own version of testing as your own
special distribution, then all the packages and tools are available to
allow you to maintain it for yourself. We've made it abundantly clear
over the years why our version of testing exists and how it's going to
be managed. End of story.

--
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com
< liw> everything I know about UK hotels I learned from "Fawlty Towers"


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On Wed June 4 2008 13:53:58 Steve McIntyre wrote:
> If you're so keen on using your own version of testing as your own
> special distribution, then all the packages and tools are available to
> allow you to maintain it for yourself.

Steve,

We use simple cross-distro scripts, in some ways similar to Dak
and Britney. For Debian Testing systems these scripts do indeed
select packages from Unstable to fill the gaps in Testing.
Unfortunately, such scripts are not useful to Debian newbies.

> We've made it abundantly clear over the years why our version
> of testing exists and how it's going to be managed.

The discussion was about improving Debian by making Debian more
useful for actual and potential Debian users. It's unfortunate
that millions of person-hours of work are funnelled only into
the highly-stable but always-aged Stable, when one simple change
could make that work much more relevant and useful for desktops
and laptops and newer servers, and without harming Stable.

> End of story.

ACK DPL. EOF.

--Mike Bird


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Mike Bird <mgb-debian@yosemite.net> writes:

> An alternative approach would be for packages to be retained in
> Testing for the benefit of the hundreds of thousands of desktop and
> laptop users who need to use Testing, and for the few members of the
> release team to use a filtered package list. The filtered package
> list would become the next Stable.

You're describing exactly the filter that led to the creation of
Debian 'testing'. That is, the Debian 'testing' branch *is* the
filtered package list that is a candidate to become the next Debian
'stable'. That is 'testing's explicit purpose, and any other
interpretation is secondary.

The users who need packages that are not good enough to be candidates
for 'stable' have the 'unstable' branch available, as always.

If none of 'oldstable', 'stable', 'testing', or 'unstable' are
satisfactory for some subset of users, then those users *still* have
the options to either look at unofficial Debian branches elsewhere or
create and maintain an alternative themselves.

--
"I have one rule to live by: Don't make it worse." -- Hazel |
` Woodcock |
_o__) |
Ben Finney


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On 2008-06-04 18:36, Pierre Habouzit wrote:
> No it's not. A user that prefers to have broken software rather than
> no software (if the option "non broken" software is absent) should use
> unstable. I mean it.
>
> You can easily use testing by default, and unstable if the program
> isn't in testing, using an /etc/apt/preferences that contains:

Thanks for your helping suggestions. For me personally, I don't think it
is a good alternative, since I prefer to stay with lenny after it
becomes stable. Unstable packages leave the slightly bitter taste that a
downgrade won't be supported, once the package reenters testing.

Therefore, IMHO, I prefer to have a package not removed from testing, if
the chances are that it might reenter in the not too distant future, ie.
before the release of lenny as stable.

I agree that it is a difficult decision for the release team to decide
on the fate of a package (not to talk about the fact that there are
thousands of them). Just in my very humble opinion as a user who
doesn't contribute directly as a DD, the decision to remove a package
from testing should not be taken too lightly.

> But I repeat: testing is what will become the next stable. We don't
> take buggy software in stable, and for <put your definition of non
> essential software here> packages we *do* prefer no packages than a non
> working one.

Agreed!

My point was solely on the *temporal* removal of packages, that have a
state not as bad as unusable and that have chances of being RC free for
lenny.

As another example take ntp. I don't know the reasons, why it was
removed. If it was removed, because the release team think that the RC
bug can't be resolved in time for release, it's fine with me.

Looking at #448408 it is stated by one of the uploaders, that they just
like to wait for the next stable upstream release. I cannot judge how
likely this is to happen in time for lenny. If the chances are not low,
however, I think it might have been better to leave ntp in testing --
especially since it appears to me that #448408 is just as relevant for
etch and so it doesn't put people upgrading from etch in a worse position.

I stress again that this is just my personal humble opinion as a non-DD
user of debian and please don't take it as an offence!

I very much appreciate the generally *excellent* work of the DDs and the
release team! Thanks a lot for producing such a wonderful distribution!

Thanks to all!!! (I can't stress THIS too much!)

Cheers,
Johannes

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