Jonas Smedegaard писал(а) 2026-02-03 18:00:
If "not exactly as shipped, including dependencies" is considered
misrepresentation, then it sounds to me that Debian is reduced to a
service for compiling and hosting code.
I mean, if a new *revision* of a dependency - i.e. something *expected*
to not affect the ABI of consuming code - is causing eyebrows or worse
from upstream, then how about bugfixes and patches that Debian does
*without* changing version numbers, again because the changes are
expected to not affect the ABI?
Or what if Debian decides to "fix" a deep dependency to not spy on its
users - that's arguably not a security bug but still somethig that is
altering from a do-not-touch-anything-even-in-dependencies stance?
What if... for each and every patch that Debian decides to apply to the
packages which this appreach intends to bypass?
Why package something in Debian, if you do not expect Debian to mean
something - some level of governance and tending to the pieces?
Upstreams are different — what bothers one may not bother
another. We want to be able to bring any of them into Debian.
If a maintainer brings a bug to upstream, they are certainly
doing upstream a favour, and upstream ought to be grateful. But
the bug must be real, genuine — from upstream's point of view. If
the maintainer brings a bug that is really about Debian using a
different version of a library, upstream may well see that report
as a waste of their time. They may even see such packaging as
discrediting their product. And they may have a point.
If we talk about the goal of packaging, the answer is simple: so
that a Debian user can use the product without leaving the
repository. That does not rule out the maintainer fixing
something their own way. There is also benefit in the Debian
maintainer not sending upstream bugs that upstream does not care
about (or sending them with a clear reason, e.g. security).
Upstream then has no
reason to think that Debian/Fedora/etc are breaking their work
and to ask "please do not package my work!".
What is the point of Debian packaging? So that the user can
install what is packaged with no extra effort. So that they
have a single place (the Debian bug tracker) to report a problem
in a consistent way, with the maintainer as a layer between the
user and upstream.
--
. ''`. Dmitry E. Oboukhov <[email protected]>
: :’ : <[email protected]>
`. `~’ work: <[email protected]>
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