Review: Syncing from testing a success?

[Dustin Kirkland]

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 2:41 PM, Martin Pitt <martin.pitt at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> Usually we'd switch back to unstable for 10.10 (maverick), but now is
> a good time for a review how the syncing from testing actually worked
> in practice and whether we'll keep it for LTSes, all releases, or drop
> it again.

Nice!  Good to hear that we recalibrate even major processes like this
from time to time.

> I have my own gut feeling about this, but to get from that to a
> sensible general evaluation we need to collect the gut feelings and
> practical experience of a lot of our developers.
>
> So, in your opinion, did syncing from testing
>
>  (1) help to avoid introducing larger breakage into Ubuntu (for the
>     domain you are usually watching)

Yes, I think syncing from testing made for more stable packages, in general.

>  (2) meant a smaller or larger amount of review and sync requests

Perhaps slightly more syncs, but this wasn't a bad thing.  As an
Archive Admin, perhaps slightly more than normal sync requests came
in.  But I think it just showed which packages were more actively
maintained, and which ones people cared about enough to request syncs.

>  (3) made it easier or harder to merge with Debian and get changes
>     integrated back upstream

I didn't see much of a difference one way or another.

>  (4) made library transitions easier or harder

No information to add.

>  (5) anything else that caused or eased problems that you can think
>     of

I think it would be a really good thing for the thousands of packages
from Debian that we sync, without ever touching again (ie, those that
lack an -XubuntuY appendage).  If we're not really actively monitoring
their quality, I think it would be good to sync those from testing,
rather than unstable.  But given that we're in an LTS+1, we can be a
little more liberal about syncing packages specifically from unstable
when requested and when it makes sense.

:-Dustin