On Thu, 04 Sep 2025 at 11:19:49 +0200, Hefee wrote:
If upstream is that aggressive
with old version, than yes the normal Debian stable is not working for signal-
desktop.
But it can be used in unstable/testing and -backports. If forky release is
taking place you can use a release-critical bug to make sure that it does not
end up in stable on purpose, if no netter solution is found until than.
Packages that are not expected to be suitable for the next stable
release should not be in testing, and therefore cannot be in backports
with backports' current policy.
A package that is too fast-moving for stable releases can be in unstable
or experimental, and the fasttrack repository
<https://fasttrack.debian.net/> is available for backports-like rebuilds
of that package to be used on a stable system.
Note that if a package exists in unstable, it will usually get copied
into Ubuntu 'universe' for their LTS releases, even if it is unsuitable
for that purpose. experimental might be a better choice for that reason.
fasttrack is an experiment, and is not currently well-integrated with
the main Debian archive: it doesn't have buildds (maintainers have to do
binary uploads) and operates its own dak instance. But I think a lot of
leaf packages like independent third-party applications (and especially
games) might be better-served by being in fasttrack than by being part
of our stable releases: for that category of package, our users want a
version that will run correctly on a stable *OS*, but not necessarily a
version of the leaf package that is, itself, long-term stable.
Using Flatpak (or maybe Snap) for leaf applications would be another
option: that way, they're sandboxed, which might be more valuable than
what they gain from being in Debian.
A lot of discussion will get easier if signal-desktop is packaged
I agree, but if someone does, I think it should be in experimental
first.
smcv
