On Mon, 05 Aug 2024 10:12:40 +0800 Sean Whitton
<spwhit...@spwhitton.name> wrote:
So far, although many people are sympathetic to the frustration at
distinguishing testing from unstable in practice, I don't believe anyone
has spoken in favour of overriding Santiago, besides Luca.
Hi,
as the maintainer (and upstream author) of the current lsb_release
implementation used in Debian and derivatives (src:lsb-release-minimal),
I'd like to voice my support in favor of having enough information in
/usr/lib/os-release to be able to tell "testing" and "unstable" apart.
(I prefer this framing to "overriding Santiago".)
Allow me to, although late and without having read the whole thread, to
add a relevant point.
There are open bugs about lsb_release being unable to distinguish
between testing and unstable.
Other DDs are already suggesting involving the CTTE to force lsb-release
to gain support for that distinction (latest example:
<https://bugs.debian.org/1038383#53>).
If this bug is closed and no information is added to os-release, then
the CTTE will be asked in the future to 1) override my decision to not
ship a Debian-specific patch in src:lsb-release-minimal, and 2) to
discuss how to exactly distinguish between testing and unstable so that
a Debian-specific patch can be added (and various messages in this
thread already show that that is a complex and controversial task.)
My opinion is that by deciding to not ship enough information in
/usr/lib/os-release to distinguish between testing and unstable the CTTE
is just pushing that same issue into a myriad of other packages.
Also, the Release Team aren't happy with Luca's plan, so even if the TC
were to override Santiago, it might be moot, because the TC can't
override delegate decisions.
Couldn't the CTTE just rule on the question:
* should Debian provide a way to distinguish between the two
similar-but-not-identical, rolling, ephemeral releases called "testing"
and "staging" via /etc/os-release?
and leave the details of how to implement that decision (dependencies,
Essential:ye, uploads, releases, etc...) to the involved parties?
Regards,
--
Gioele Barabucci
