Maintaining language-specific module package stacks

[Matthias Klose]

On 04.04.19 06:08, Seth Arnold wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 03, 2019 at 12:41:04PM +0100, Robie Basak wrote:
>>  1. If a language-specific package, or stack of packages, is stuck in
>> proposed, and nobody is volunteering to get them migrated, then we are
>> more willing to delete them from the release pocket and release without
>> that stack.
> 
> Thank you Robie for the proposal.
> 
> I believe this is in our users' best interests. I am conflicted, since I
> know I much preferred getting the Ruby on Rails stack from Ubuntu when I
> was using it many years ago, and continue to prefer using the Python and
> Perl modules that we've packaged.
> 
> However, the status quo isn't doing anybody any favours. It might be
> convenient for casual users but confuses the situation for everyone.
> 
> It's unfortunate that even if someone does step up to bring these
> language-specific stacks up to the standard we expect for release,
> it doesn't provide any assurances for users that these stacks will
> be maintained. However, knowing that they are out of date at time of
> release is worse enough that raising the bar even this little is useful.

Aging is a tautology for every software in a distro release, so why does it only
apply to some software?

Everybody is a casual user for most software in a distro or not using the
software at all.  So I can't follow your conclusion "this is in our users' best
interests", if we have these casual users (and apparently you are one of them).