> Okay, so say some random person who has installed Debian wants XEmacs 19.15 > because he needs some feature. This seems like a reasonable request... He > could get it from the Hamm distribution, except that would mean he'd need > libc6...and he doesn't want to do that, because he's heard that it will > affect the stability of his system. > > What then can he do besides compile it himself? If the answer is only > compile it himself...is there a way we can add a special update directory > for 1.3, that will have later versions of programs, and people can > optionally tell dselect to look there? > > Or am I missing a big part of the picture? > > Thanks, > Sam
That is exactly what I posted on the list a few days ago. Unfotunately there was the only response (from Brian White -- thanks). I proposed to have "unsupported" directory with the updates of this kind which would not officially belong to the Debian 1.3.* . The most solid ground not to switch to libc6 is not instability from the user's point of view (may be libc6 is not that bad), but from the point of view of developer who's using different kind of commercial developmental suits. Unfortunately, as far as I can see, there is no clean way to have both developmental trees (libc5 and libc6) on the same machine. And what even more unfortunate, Debian's goal does not seem to have a good "transformation period system", where ALL tricky points of two libraries coexistence are resolved, but to switch EVERYTHING to libc6 as soon as possible. The only outcome of this would the loss of quite a few serious developers for Debian's community. Thank you, Alex Y. -- _ _( )_ ( (o___ | _ 7 ''' \ (") (O O) / \ \ +---------------oOO--(_)--------------------+ | \ __/ <-- | Alexander Yukhimets [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | | | http://pages.nyu.edu/~aqy6633/ | ( / +-------------------------oOO---------------+ \ / |__|__| ) /(_ || || | (___) ooO Ooo \___) -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .