On Sun, Jan 07, 2018 at 04:37:49PM +0100, Hans wrote: > Am Sonntag, 7. Januar 2018, 16:26:55 CET schrieb Floris: > Hi Floris and all, > > maybe my question was not clearly expressed, due to my English. It was not > aimed to that special package. I would like to know, why packages completely > disappear, instead of just leaving the last well running version available in > testing. IMO to fully remove a running version completely in opposite of > keeping the last good version is in my eyes the worse idea. >
One point that has been skirted around in a couple of answers but not directly expressed is that putting the old, working version in testing is not the right thing to do in some situations if that old version cannot be a candidate for inclusion in buster when it is released (that is, when it becomes the stable distribution). Using this package you took as an example, it is not at the moment a candidate for inclusion in buster as a release because it depends on a version of the SSL libraries that will not be there when buster is released (unless something changes). Putting it in testing now would be lying, in a way, because that package will not be there when the testing distribution becomes the stable distribution. The version already in stable is fine because the version of the SSL library it needs is in stable. Why then, you might ask, is the package in sid? Two reasons, I guess : one, the package maintainer is clearly engaged in an argument with _someone_ about what the right resolution is, but the package isn't regarded as evil and isn't being dropped from Debian altogether, on the assumption a resolution will eventually be found. Two, the required SSL library is in sid but blocked from making the transition to buster, and therefore this package cannot make the transition because not all its dependencies have. So in summary this comes about because the package is not _currently_ in a state that could be released in a stable buster release, but an optimistic assumption that the problem will get solved eventually is being made. In the meantime, no claims are being made that buster is anywhere near ready for release, so things like this are to be expected. HTH Mark