On Tuesday 09 March 2010, Steve Wray wrote:
>Gene Heskett wrote:
>> On Tuesday 09 March 2010, Dustin J. Mitchell wrote:
>>> On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 1:58 PM, Steve Wray <steve.w...@cwa.co.nz> wrote:
>>>> Right, so the LATEST most up-to-date version of Debian uses a 3 year
>>>> old version of amanda. Fantastic, thanks Debian for keeping things so
>>>> 'stable'.
>>>
>>> To be fair, that's exactly the intent, and maintaining a Linux
>>> distribution is *not* easy. All of the binary-only distros are
>>> "behind the times" to varying degrees, although Debian is usually
>>> bringing up the rear of the bunch.
>>>
>>>> I downloaded the actual latest stable version of amanda (2.6.1p2 from
>>>> November 2009), compiled it and tested it.
>>>>
>>>> No bug.
>>>
>>> Yay!
>>>
>>>> Thanks, Debian package maintainer. Not.
>
>[snip]
>
>>> If there are Amanda bugs that are holding back a version bump, please
>>> let me know. At the moment, I only see two open bugs, one from 2006
>>> and one from 2008, neither of which is blocking a bump.
>>>
>>> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=500364
>>> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=370319
>>>
>>> Dustin
>>
>> I'm on your side here Dustin. The distros, debian in particular need
>> prodding. What you use for a prod is up to you. :-)
>
>The problem I have with submitting bug reports to Debian on this sort of
>thing is this:
>
>If the bug is not security related then its extremely unlikely to be fixed
>until the NEXT stable release.
>
>In Debian, stability means making sure that non-security bugs are
>maintained throughout the lifetime of the release. The bugs are *part* of
>the stability.
What? Crazy theory, but probably correct, in the debian camp that is.
>The theory is that people may have implemented workarounds
>for these bugs. If you go fixing the bug then you break their workaround.
>
>Since, due to this (and other ongoing concerns with the 'stability'
>problems of Debian), I will not be using the next stable release.
I probably will. For one thing, the 6.06 release and the accompanying
releases of emc, which run my milling machine, haven't been getting all the
loving that the 8.04 LTS version is getting, and at some point I'll have to
update just so I can use the newer versions of EMC. OTOH, so far it is doing
everything I ask it to do, soo.....
>So why would I bother to point out to them that, "hey, maybe when you
>release the next Debian version you use the current version of Amanda?" if
>I am not going to be using that version? This would be purely altruistic...
>and if Debian can't figure this out for themselves well... to be frank, I
>have no time for that.
Can't say as I blame you. Stone walls aren't much fun to talk to.
>> I go back 11+ years with amanda, usually running the bleeding edge as
>> now. Considering that I build the new snapshot and use it nightly several
>> times a week, the number of real bugs has been almost vanishingly small
>> even when its labeled as alpha, not for production use. FWIW, 90% of
>> those were tar's fault, not amanda's. There are several tar versions
>> about, not all of which are even compatible with themselves. Amanda is
>> compatible with itself with one exception, a format change a good 8 or 9
>> years ago. Folks like Dustin and Jean-Louis write tight, and correct
>> code. I mentally salute them as I toss last nights printout on top of
>> the stack (should, heaven forbid, I need to consult it) every morning.
>
>That reminds me; in one release of Debian the version of tar and of amanda
>were incompatible! It was the 'tar gives exit status 1 if a file changed
>while being read' problem IIRC.
>
>This was NEVER fixed in that 'stable' release. I should have seen the
>writing on the wall, really.
>
Yeah, we had to jump a tar version there, in addition to beating the tar
folks about the brow, which I did at the time. They said they weren't gonna
fix it, but then the crowd roar got to them and they did eventually. ;-)
--
Cheers Dustin, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
For most men life is a search for the proper manila envelope in which to
get themselves filed.
-- Clifton Fadiman
