>>>>> "Russ" == Russ Allbery <r...@debian.org> writes:
Russ> We do drop features all the time between stable releases, Russ> though, and generally that too is at the maintainer's Russ> discretion. The package maintainer's normal obligation in Russ> Debian isn't to keep everything working that previously was Russ> working, but to make it obvious when something is incompatible Russ> (ideally before it breaks on a given system in a way that's Russ> hard to back out of). Agreed. Russ> Often this is done by dropping or Russ> renaming packages so that the old package just has no upgrade Russ> path, but we handle it in other ways as well (release notes, Russ> NEWS.Debian, etc., depending on the severity of the Russ> incompatibility). Agreed. I think a reasonable way for the TC to handle the init script part of this bug might be to politely suggest to the maintainer that they include a note in the release notes. (Or for a member of the TC to just propose such a note to the release notes maintainers). Russ> I guess the summary of my position on init scripts Russ> specifically is that I generally agree with Wouter's framing Russ> of two approaches to Debian who want very different things, Russ> and I thought (at least for init scripts) we put a range of Russ> options on the table from "you must support both approaches" Russ> to "we're only going to support one approach," and the option Russ> that people chose is "one option is strongly preferred but Russ> individual maintainers can support other approaches if they Russ> want to and we don't want to make exploration of other Russ> approaches impossible." The implication was that some Russ> individual maintainers *won't* want to support other Russ> approaches in their individual packages, and that's a decision Russ> they get to make, and therefore folks who want to keep Russ> sysvinit working should be exploring options that don't Russ> require the maintainer incorporate that support (such as a Russ> separate package of init scripts or a conversion utility that Russ> generates init scripts from unit files). We are in agreement here. I guess that's not surprising given how many times we have discussed this:-)