Stable GNOME updates, how could be do better?

[Martin Pitt]

Bryce Harrington [2009-07-29 13:31 -0700]:
> Also, as a rule the stuff added to x-updates are either upstream point
> releases (which will have gone through upstream's QA cycle), or is a
> fakesync from Debian (implying that it's been tested there).  So this
> should help assure us that the code inside the package is tested.

My concern was that (in the context of GNOME releases at least, where
this thread started), most developers aren't running the actual target
release. There are cases where the upstream code is perfectly valid,
but causes regressions when being backported to an older release with
different libraries. See LP #207072 for a spectacular case where
backporting a patch to intrepid worked perfectly well, and the hardy
backport broke things.

So while the situation with device drivers is a bit different in terms
of how you need to test them, and why people need updated drivers more
than updated features or desktop bug fixes in stables (OEM, hw
enablement), both have in common that we need to put in a lot of
testing before we can bless it to -updates. From what you said, you
also agreed that you wouldn't consider moving the x-updates packages
into {hardy,jaunty}-updates as well?

Martin
-- 
Martin Pitt                        | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com)  | Debian Developer  (www.debian.org)