Thanks for following up. I know it is difficult to support different versions of packages, but as you say, "Debian as an organization supports Stable. Debian suggests that users use the Stable production release. Debian asks users to submit bugs found in packages." I don't mind that this bug has been closed without an attempt to fix it. I am happy that this bug will stay in BTS as it is at least a record in case others have the same issue, and perhaps even someone will find a proper fix someday. While wheezy is just around the corner, corporate users may continue to use squeeze for a long time after Debian support has lapsed. BTS is not just for developer support, but also for community support. I love Debian's BTS and wish more projects used it.
Thanks, Jayen On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 5:59 AM, Bob Proulx <b...@proulx.com> wrote: > Jayen Ashar, > > Just an FYI about the Debian BTS. There has been a long standing > conflict with the use of it. Developers tend to only care about the > Unstable track. The BTS is designed around the Unstable track. Bugs > are closed when they are fixed in Unstable even if they still exist in > Stable. As such the BTS is really designed for use by developers > working with Unstable and the feature set of it works against users of > Stable. This has been this way for a very long time and personally > wish it were otherwise but so it is. > > Additionally it has been two years since the previous Stable release > took a snapshot from Unstable. In the intervening time the upstream > Unstable ifupdown package has been reworked almost completely by > Andrew. It bears little resemblance to the version in Stable > anymore. It is unlikely that the bug you are reporting now in Stable > would also be present in Unstable. Changes to Stable would only be > allowed through if it were a security upgrade. That would not apply > to this case. Therefore even if fixed it would not be suitable for > a Stable update. > > And one more additional important information point. Unstable / > Wheezy has been frozen for eight months in order to get Wheezy ready > to be released as the next Stable! Things are really quite close. In > perhaps just a few days or few weeks Wheezy will be released as the > new Stable. It is just around the corner. At that time any bugs that > are in Squeeze but not Wheezy can be closed and abandoned. That would > be the case here. Your bug in Squeeze is very likely to be orphaned > by the release of Wheezy in a very short time. This makes it very > demotivating for anyone to work on it since if anyone procrastinates > just a few weeks the problem disappears completely from the Debian > system because the new Stable release won't have it and there is no > support promised for Oldstable. And especially since the new Wheezy > package has been substantially changed there isn't any return on the > investment of working on the Squeeze version of the package. > > Andrew Shadura wrote: >> Excuse me, but I don't support 0.6 any more. > > As package maintainer that is your prerogative but to people who using > the Debian Stable this can be very disheartening. Debian as an > organization supports Stable. Debian suggests that users use the > Stable production release. Debian asks users to submit bugs found in > packages. This bug is a good example of a package in Stable and a > user submitting a bug against it. The submitter is doing all of the > right things. > > I think it would have been much more friendly to simply tag the bug as > "squeeze" (tag 701072 + squeeze). That would classify it properly for > the BTS. It affects Squeeze but does not affect Wheezy. And perhaps > someone might actually suggest a workaround for it during the lifetime > of Stable Squeeze. > > http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#tags > > When Wheezy releases simply close all of the bugs tagged "squeeze". > That close action will notify the submitter that a fixed version is > then available in Stable. This type of handling is much more friendly > to the users of Debian and is fully supported by the current BTS. > > Bob -- Marathon Targets Pty Ltd Marathon, like the run from Marathon to Athens Targets, like the things at which one shoots for practice Sydney, Australia http://www.marathon-targets.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
