Partially phased updates on release media

[Steve Langasek]

On Thu, May 20, 2021 at 04:27:39PM +0200, Julian Andres Klode wrote:
> On Wed, May 19, 2021 at 03:59:06PM -0700, Brian Murray wrote:
> > The release team was recently discussing the possibility of point
> > release media containing updates which are not fully phased and how this
> > creates a difference between upgraded systems and freshly installed
> > ones[1]. Looking at the packages which are not currently phasing[2] I've
> > discovered that the 16.04.7 installation iso contains
> > unity-control-center 15.04.0+16.04.20171130-0ubuntu1 and the 18.04.5 iso
> > contains nautilus 1:3.26.4-0~ubuntu18.04.5. To ensure that both types of
> > systems are the same I think we should fully phase these two packages.

> > Additionally, a step should be added to the point release process to nag
> > the uploader of a package which has stopped phasing to investigate the
> > reasons for the stoppage well before (2 weeks?) the point release.  If
> > the package is still not fully phased in time for the point release then
> > the release team should make a decision about fully phasing it or
> > reverting to the previous version of the package.

> I just filed https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/+bug/1929082 against
> launchpad to keep the previous version of the update in updates while
> a new one is being phased.

> This would then allow image builders to set the never-include-phased-updates
> option in apt.conf, and then images will always build with whatever is
> fully phased, and we don't have to take as much special care (just need
> to disable phasing changes during image building time) for future LTS
> releases.

Do we have a committment from the Launchpad team to resolve this bug?

Also, while that seems a reasonable feature to add to the archive in
general, I'm not sure it gives us the result we want for point releases. 
The SRUs most likely to in the process of phasing at the time point release
media are mastered are the ones that have just been accepted into -updates
precisely for inclusion in the point release.  So having these NOT be
included in favor of a previous SRU would give exactly the wrong result for
point releases.

I think the right way around is to ensure our processes back out any SRUs
that have failed phasing prior to the point release, and to include all
others in the release media as fully-phased with the expectation that the
archive phasing will catch up soon.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                   https://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org
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