On Fri, Feb 02, 2007 at 10:12:44PM +0000, Justin B Rye wrote: > file is essentially frozen; what is there to warn them that after > the release they'll need to give up using alioth? It wouldn't hurt > to have a comment somewhere in the docs/configs along the lines of: > > # If you plan to use Stable, please be aware that online tag > # databases are more likely to track Testing/Unstable; so be careful > # about downloading tags from them, and please do not contribute > # tags back upstream without checking they're still accurate for > # current package versions.
This is a very good idea: I've committed it as a comment in the sources.list file: # Regularly updated, but unchecked, database on the web # # If you plan to use Stable, please be aware that online tag # databases are more likely to track Testing/Unstable; so be careful # about downloading tags from them, and please check if tags are still # accurate for current package versions before contributing them upstream # #tags http://debtags.alioth.debian.org/tags/ (I turned the second part upside down to follow the "Be positive before being negative" part of my own Debian Community Guidelines[1] :) And since you made me realise I could put all sorts of notes in the comments of that file, I've also added this one: # To contribute tags, please visit http://debtags.alioth.debian.org/todo.html > (It shouldn't be too hard for debtags to be user-friendly about > handling this kind of thing for itself; probably all you'd need to > do is add some sort of release-number stamp on tag-archives, > supplementing the "DEBTAGS DIFF V0.1" header on patch-submissions, > and warn of mismatches.) Oh oh oh, now I see it. A Sarge user submitting a tag patch would potentially and in good faith revert legitimate tag updates done after sarge. This is a very tricky one: encoding the distribution version in the header isn't enough, as one could be using backports or a mixed sarge/testing distro. I should encode the installed package version for every package, or course if the package is installed at all. I remember adding tags to lots of packages that I've never installed in my life. Now that I think about it, debtags-edit is in Ubuntu, so we may even potentially get submissions from Ubuntu. I'd be inclined in giving up on an optimal solution, and just go for approximate ones. We can, for example, tolerate flaws in the tagging of features, decide that dummy/metapackage tags are the critical ones, and find ways just to cope with those. I still don't see easy solutions, but at least I'm now aware of the problem. BTW, please remind me to detect the distro version from the browser string in the web interface, and to display a warning if one is running an old version of Debian: that should be rather doable, and we do already have a place for warnings in the interface. Ciao, Enrico [1] http://people.debian.org/~enrico/dcg/ch02s04.html -- GPG key: 1024D/797EBFAB 2000-12-05 Enrico Zini <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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