Getting new packages into Ubuntu

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, October 10, 2011 03:26:18 PM Barry Warsaw wrote:
> On Oct 10, 2011, at 02:50 PM, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> >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.
> 
> Of course, this is supposed to be one of the primary benefits of timed
> releases.  If a feature isn't ready at the time of the release, it *should*
> be low risk and S.O.P. to just delay it until the next clock tick.

Except we don't actually do that.  We had new feature uploads past final freeze 
this cycle.  As long as certain upstreams are free to ignore the distro 
schedule, it's going to be problematic.

Scott K