Stable Release Update Regression/Build Problem

[Steve Langasek]

On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 11:17:37PM -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> An SRU for aptoncd was just moved from hardy-proposed (where it worked) to 
> hardy-updates where it does not due to a pending python-central SRU.

> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/aptoncd/+bug/199600

> The aptoncd package was apparently built against python-central 0.6.7ubuntu0.1 
> in hardy-proposed which produces a versioned depends on python-central 
> (>=0.6.7) but 0.6.5ubuntu1 is all that is currently available in Hardy's 
> release pocket.

> I'm not sure if there are other packages that use python-central in 
> hardy-proposed, but none should be pocket copied from hardy-proposed to 
> hardy-updates until python-central gets moved.

> Filed in launchpad as bug 242554.

> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/aptoncd/+bug/242554

Scott got ahold of me on IRC shortly after sending this email, and I've
followed through on the python-central SRU candidate which has now been
validated and copied to hardy-updates.

I've marked bug #242554 as 'fix released', as the dependency of aptoncd
should now be satisfiable within hardy-updates as soon as the package has
been published and the mirrors catch up.

This highlights the need for a check as part of our SRU process to verify
that packages which are being copied into -updates won't cause
uninstallability problems.  python-central is not a unique case in
warranting such a check; whenever an ABI-changing kernel SRU is done, it's
important to be sure that all the packages are copied as a group to avoid
regressions in installability such as this, and currently this check is done
entirely by hand.

An appropriate follow-up to prevent this problem from recurring would be to
implement such a check.  Perhaps britney is the right starting point for
this?

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org