Getting new packages into Ubuntu

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, October 10, 2011 07:52:44 PM Sebastien Bacher wrote:
> Le lundi 10 octobre 2011 à 13:15 -0400, Scott Kitterman a écrit :
> > I understand what you're saying.  It's not a distro I would use.
> 
> Ok, fair enough, let's agree that we disagree then. Just one question
> then, do you consider a feature (i.e a good thing) that upstreams have
> to get "locked" in our 6 months cycle or do you think that's something
> we should aim at fixing in some way?
> 
> Let's take a simple example, we got a new login manager (lightdm) this
> cycle, from reading blogs some users who miss having a graphical tool to
> tweak the config of their login screen started hacking on an utility
> called "simple-lightdm-manager", that started too late to get in Oneiric
> though and the quality might not be archive ready. How do you recommend
> we solve the issue that some users might be interested to get that sort
> of utility and use them on Oneiric? If upstream is adding features as
> time permit and is adding an option to pick the greeter to use in 2
> weeks which should Ubuntu users need to wait 6 months and the lts to get
> their hands on it?

First, I think that things are getting pushed into the distro before they are 
really ready.  Also there are upstreams that push to get last minute features 
in (e.g. Unity) and so there are consequences when there are unexpected side 
effects.  One way to reduce the amount of post-release desire for churn due to 
missing things is to get things into the release on time and then people have 
a chance to adapt.

For the more general case of leaf packages that would benefit from updating, I 
think that get it into the next release and then backport it solves most 
cases.  It can even be used for libraries on a reasonable basis if adeequate 
testing is done.

I don't see how there's any need to be locked in.

Scott K