Re: Debconf QA BOF summary / handling of orphaned packages

[Thomas Viehmann]

Lucas Nussbaum wrote:

The reason why I think that moving some of the orphaned packages to
experimental is a good idea, is because often, you run into packages
that are still useful to a small number of users, have no alternative,
still basically work, but have been orphaned for >2 years with nobody
willing to maintain them. In that case, we should not release with such
packages, but it should still be available (though unsupported) to the
users.
What is experimental about these packages? Experimental has a purpose. 
It is not keeping unsupported packages around.


The packages are still on archive.d.o if they ever made a release (and 
soon more finely grained on snapshots). The typical package did not get 
nontrivial updates in a release cycle before it was removed, so the 
version on archive.d.o will be just as good as the version you want to 
stuff into experimental.


If the users who still derive benefit from the package do not want to 
maintain it, tough luck. Free software works relies on people helping out.
I cannot see how turning experimental "maintained packages that can use 
a test drive before general consumption" into "pile of broken, obsolete 
packages nobody ever wants to see again" is something that benefits 
Debian at large. In addition, I cannot see how users without means to 
obtain the package from archive.d.o or some snapshot repository can 
responsibly be pointed at experimental as a source of packages.
The same people who do not help out maintaining would also be less 
likely to file bugs. Leaving experimental essentially as a dump where 
packages rot without ever seeing any attention. Eventually experimental 
will become as useless as sourceforge as a source of working software. 
Improving Debian? Only if your only measure is number of packages, 
probably. Other than that? No.


Please do not turn Debian into "Pile of Packages" as opposed to 
"operating system" more than it already is.


Kind regards

T.

P.S.: Of course, a lot time might be freed if Debian QA didn't 
effectively maintain half of the non-orphaned packages as well when it 
comes to fixing bugs. But as things are like they are

--
Thomas Viehmann, http://thomas.viehmann.net/


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-qa-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org

Re: Debconf QA BOF summary / handling of orphaned packages

[Raphael Hertzog]

Hi Thomas,

I love the work you do for Debian but I hate the positions you are
taking since you left the project. I have the feeling that you have an
extremist point of view and that you are not willing to try to understand
the other side of the discussion.

On Sun, 02 Aug 2009, Thomas Viehmann wrote:
> Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> >The reason why I think that moving some of the orphaned packages to
> >experimental is a good idea, is because often, you run into packages
> >that are still useful to a small number of users, have no alternative,
> >still basically work, but have been orphaned for >2 years with nobody
> >willing to maintain them. In that case, we should not release with such
> >packages, but it should still be available (though unsupported) to the
> >users.
> What is experimental about these packages? Experimental has a
> purpose. It is not keeping unsupported packages around.

What's experimental in packages put in experimental just because testing
is frozen?

The naming of the repository is not the only thing that should be 
taken into account...

Experimental is:
- auto-built
- still part of debian (packages there show up in the PTS for instance)
- mirrored
- packages can still be updated by DD
- not supported by the security team

So a package that has been orphaned for some months already but that is
still working could be moved to it in the hope that someone will come and
maintain it. Once a package is removed of Debian, it's not here anymore and
we're not looking for anyone to adopt it.

So this solution is a nice intermediary solution between continue to
maintain the package in sid by the QA team and remove the package
completely.

And I see no point in trying to convince us not to do this for some
packages where this makes sense (because we don't want to remove
it as it still has a high-popcon).

> I cannot see how turning experimental "maintained packages that can
> use a test drive before general consumption" into "pile of broken,
> obsolete packages nobody ever wants to see again" is something that
> benefits Debian at large.

Not all orphaned packages are broken and obsolete. So just stop asserting
this as a general rule.

> where packages rot without ever seeing any attention. Eventually
> experimental will become as useless as sourceforge as a source of
> working software. Improving Debian? Only if your only measure is
> number of packages, probably. Other than that? No.

The packages in experimental would still follow the same process... if
they ever start accumulating RC bugs or are there for too long, they will
be removed. The point is to stop keeping orphaned packages for too long in
testing/sid...

Because by keeping them in testing/sid, you make it harder to remove them
later as other packages might start depending on them and we make it
harder to keep testing/sid RC bug free since we have more packages that
must be taken care of by the QA team.

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-qa-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org

Bug#539604: qa.debian.org: Wrong dates on wnpp bugs

[Mauro Lizaur]

Package: qa.debian.org
Severity: wishlist

Hello, 
I've just noticed that http://qa.debian.org/wnpp.php?login=$PERSON
displays a wrong amount of days for owned bugs. 
I mean, "my page" [0] shows this line:

# #535627: ITP: python-audiolab -- A python module to make noise from numpy 
arrays (30 day(s) old)
[1]

While I just retitled that bug from RFP to ITP on last
Thursday, instead of 30 days this should read 3 days
(Thursday being July 30th and today being August 2nd).
Yes, the origin of the bug is from 30 days ago, but I started to work 
on it a few days ago, this is why I consider that this could be a /bug/.

I set the severity to whishlist because perhaps there's a
reason for this behaviour that I'm not aware of.
Feel free to modify the severity or to close this report.

[0] http://qa.debian.org/wnpp.php?login=mauro%40cacavoladora.org
[1] http://bugs.debian.org/535627


Saludos,
Mauro

-- 
JID: lavaram...@jabber.org | http://lusers.com.ar/
2B82 A38D 1BA5 847A A74D 6C34 6AB7 9ED6 C8FD F9C1



-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-qa-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org

Re: Debconf QA BOF summary / handling of orphaned packages

[Thomas Viehmann]

Hi.

Raphael Hertzog wrote:

I love the work you do for Debian but I hate the positions you are
taking since you left the project. I have the feeling that you have an
extremist point of view and that you are not willing to try to understand
the other side of the discussion.


> And I see no point in trying to convince us not to do this for some
> packages where this makes sense (because we don't want to remove
> it as it still has a high-popcon).

Thanks for clarifying that.

Kind regards

T.
--
Thomas Viehmann, http://thomas.viehmann.net/


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-qa-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org

Re: Debconf QA BOF summary / handling of orphaned packages

[Cyril Brulebois]

Lucas Nussbaum  (31/07/2009):
> On 30/07/09 at 17:16 +0200, Sven Hoexter wrote:
> > IMHO it would be nice to aim at a release without oraphaned packages.
> 
> That's totally unrealistic.

Indeed. Quick examples which may come to mind:
 - xulrunner and all gecko-based pakages.
 - webkit and all depending packages.

Ha!

(Looks like people got interested lately, but you get the idea.)

Mraw,
KiBi.


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: Debconf QA BOF summary / handling of orphaned packages

[Cyril Brulebois]

Thomas Viehmann  (02/08/2009):
> The packages are still on archive.d.o if they ever made a release (and
> soon more finely grained on snapshots). The typical package did not
> get nontrivial updates in a release cycle before it was removed, so
> the version on archive.d.o will be just as good as the version you
> want to stuff into experimental.

I can think of three packages (maintained until now by Pabs and myself)
that may deserve being kept "somewhere" as they currently are, so that
people can still jump in and not start again from scratch. I believe the
current packages could be better than the last released ones (read: the
ones one could find on archive.debian.org). I guess that having that
kind of packages still available on snapshot.debian.org might be a bit
more useful than only archive.debian.org; but well, VCSes might still be
alive for some time, and that might be enough. Not everyone's using
VCSes anyway.

Speaking of which it might be nice to have some area in collab-maint's
VCSes where to put orphaned (and even removed) packages, so that it's
cleared they're kind-of-dropped.

Mraw,
KiBi.


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Processed: bug housekeeping

[Debian Bug Tracking System]

Processing commands for cont...@bugs.debian.org:

> # the following bugs don't affect me any more.
> # if you have any interest in them, please reopen
> # changing the submitter to yourself. thanks.
> unmerge 397820
Bug#397820: should not be native (NMU regession)
Warning: Unknown package 'dak'
Bug#395563: Last NMU made package Debian native
Warning: Unknown package 'dak'
Disconnected #397820 from all other report(s).

> unmerge 484809
Bug#484809: package naming recommendations
Bug#253511: "provide guideline to keep the package namespace sane"
Disconnected #484809 from all other report(s).

> unmerge 380440
Bug#380440: ddpo: could use all uids on key for regularly maintained
Bug#359044: Developers summary page only showing a fraction of his packages
Disconnected #380440 from all other report(s).

> close 502702
Bug#502702: chm2pdf is nowhere close to releasable
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> close 475570
Bug#475570: uninstallable on powerpc
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to t...@beamnet.de (Thomas Viehmann)

> close 500939
Bug#500939: programs using varargs segfaulting
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> close 503591
Bug#503591: Please don't include yet another copy of tzdata in the archive
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> close 531960
Bug#531960: segfault on exit
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> close 531961
Bug#531961: missing dependency declaration
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> close 349707
Bug#349707: abcde: incorrect encoding in ogg tags
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> close 498521
Bug#498521: io is not a good 3rd-party module name
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> close 501146
Bug#501146: pth: funny things with sigprocmask on i386
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> close 517904
Bug#517904: tesseract-deu: provide source data
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> close 366225
Bug#366225: tkapp.wantobject() doesn't match Tkinter's implementation
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> close 397820
Bug#397820: should not be native (NMU regession)
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Warning: Unknown package 'dak'
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> close 464581
Bug#464581: xchat-gnome: msg flood detection counter
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> close 464730
Bug#464730: xchat-gnome: msg flood whitelist
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> close 464731
Bug#464731: xchat-gnome: flood detection vs. autosaving the configuration file
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> close 477724
Bug#477724: O: sqlrelay -- Database connection pooling, proxying and load 
balancing
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> close 539060
Bug#539060: RM: delo -- RoQA: RC buggy, obsolete
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> close 539145
Bug#539145: RM: xpumon -- RoQA: RC-buggy, obsolete
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> close 539280
Bug#539280: RM: workman -- RoQA: orphaned, RC buggy, low popcon (likely better 
alternatives)
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> close 539344
Bug#539344: RM: pcsx-df -- RoQA: licence-violation, orphaned
'close' is deprecated; see http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#closing.
Bug closed, send any further explanations to Thomas Viehmann 

> 

Re: Debconf QA BOF summary / handling of orphaned packages

[Stefano Zacchiroli]

On Sun, Aug 02, 2009 at 02:58:27PM +0200, Cyril Brulebois wrote:
> Speaking of which it might be nice to have some area in
> collab-maint's VCSes where to put orphaned (and even removed)
> packages, so that it's cleared they're kind-of-dropped.

This seems to be a recurring proposal. I raised it 1 year ago (IIRC,
sorry I'm too lazy right now to look the reference) and Raphael
Hertzog pointed out to me that way before he advanced the same
proposal.

The counter-argument I received 1 year ago is that we do not want to
make any easier to "maintain" orphaned packages, e.g., via QA
uploads. While I somehow understand that point of view, I still
consider the proposal a good idea, mainly because it technically
facilitates resurrecting the packages for the future maintainer.

Cheers.

-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..|  .  |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...| ..: | Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: Debconf QA BOF summary / handling of orphaned packages

[Manoj Srivastava]

On Sun, Aug 02 2009, Raphael Hertzog wrote:

> I love the work you do for Debian but I hate the positions you are
> taking since you left the project. I have the feeling that you have an
> extremist point of view and that you are not willing to try to understand
> the other side of the discussion.

This is an argument against the man (ad hominem), and should not
 be acceptable on a public mailing list.  Such content, if it at all has
 to be expressed, should be done in private, and thus improve the
 overall atmosphere on public mailing lists.

manoj
-- 
Sigmund Freud is alleged to have said that in the last analysis the
entire field of psychology may reduce to biological electrochemistry.
Manoj Srivastava    
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B  924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-qa-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org

Re: Debconf QA BOF summary / handling of orphaned packages

[Cyril Brulebois]

Stefano Zacchiroli  (02/08/2009):
> This seems to be a recurring proposal. I raised it 1 year ago (IIRC,
> sorry I'm too lazy right now to look the reference) and Raphael
> Hertzog pointed out to me that way before he advanced the same
> proposal.

Sorry for that, missed it/them.

> The counter-argument I received 1 year ago is that we do not want to
> make any easier to "maintain" orphaned packages, e.g., via QA uploads.
> While I somehow understand that point of view, I still consider the
> proposal a good idea, mainly because it technically facilitates
> resurrecting the packages for the future maintainer.

Well, orphaning something because one is running out of time, and
because some packages need a lot of attention is I guess a valid
situation (hint: see the blender thread on dd@). I would personally hate
that someone has to start the packaging and the patching from scratch.

Anyway, it's probably too hot a topic for me. I guess I'll just shut up.

Mraw,
KiBi.


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature