proposal do disallow syncs of library packages from experimental without approval

[Iain Lane]

Hiya,

On Wed, Oct 05, 2011 at 03:55:54PM +0100, Colin Watson wrote:
> […]
> > All three cases have in common that the packages were left alone for
> > months. The third example could have been avoided if we could check
> > build dependencies when syncing, and rejecting the sync when the
> > b-d's are not fulfilled (although there should be an override
> > option).
>
> I don't want to add extra archive-admin checking to the sync process;
> firstly, we're moving towards self-service syncs anyway, and secondly,
> as the libav example shows, syncs aren't really special here.
>
> More discipline for library upgrades would indeed be a good thing.
> The main problem seems to be library upgrades that don't really have
> anyone looking after them (and this is worst when it's Ubuntu-local or
> from Debian experimental; at least in unstable the Debian release team
> usually cares to some extent).  IMO, we should make it clear that if
> you sync or merge a library from experimental then it is your
> responsibility to ensure that all reverse-dependencies are ported.

Right: if you introduce a SONAME bump (or similar) you should care for
it. This cycle the burden has fallen upon those who choose to care for
the NBS list, and that's neither fair nor sustainable.

Most of these uploads will have to go through binary NEW so that is a
good opportunity to check with the uploader that they plan to address
the ramifications of the uploads they introduce.

If people cannot be trusted to take care of their transitions (if, after
a time of enforcing this additional social pressure the situation is
still not improving enough) then the release team can step in and ask
that such uploads be run through them first, in a
similar-but-not-as-complicated role to that played by the Debian release
team.

As we rely quite heavily on Debian for QA anyway, we can probably only
care for those transitions happening in Ubuntu first (as you said).

Cheers,

-- 
Iain Lane                                  [ iain at orangesquash.org.uk ]
Debian Developer                                   [ laney at debian.org ]
Ubuntu Developer                                   [ laney at ubuntu.com ]
PhD student                                       [ ial at cs.nott.ac.uk ]
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