The process by which software gets into testing needs to be much
more rigorous than it is. Consider:
xlibs won't upgrade because of bugs in ssh-askpass, sndconfig
and/or playmidi that are "fixed in unstable." Why then, did xlibs
get moved to testing and not the others?
reportbug won't install because it depends on python-newt which
depends on a newer version of libnewt0 than is installed in
testing. Why did python-newt get moved to testing and not
libnewt0?
wmakerconf-data and wmaker can't both exist together in testing
because wmakerconf-data is version 0.62 and depends on wmaker 0.62
but the version of wmaker is 0.61. Why did the new version of
wmakerconf-data get moved to testing but not wmaker?
These are just but a few of the examples off the top of my head. The
list continues and I'm sure others have more examples.
I would argue that the latter two of these problems should not exist
in testing. The process by which software gets into testing (and
eventually to stable) should ensure that the entire distribution is
self-sufficient. No software shall be installed that depends on
nonexistent software. This should not be a difficult problem as much
of the software already exists in apt, dpkg, and probably others.
The problem presented in the xlibs example is a little more
difficult to overcome, but I believe sophisticated CM tools provide
for this. While you wouldn't want xlibs to depend on an unrelated
package such as ssh-askpass, you do want to capture this information
to suppress upgrades until the unrelated software is fixed. Perhaps
an Depends-If-Installed header might provide a stopgap solution
although an external database might be more appropriate.
I *do* appreciate the Debian maintainers that bring us the best
Linux distribution of all, and I *do* appreciate that testing isn't
as stable as stable. However, our time is better spent finding
legitimate bugs, rather than errors that could have been
prevented/found by software.
--
Bill Wohler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.newt.com/wohler/ GnuPG ID:610BD9AD
Maintainer of comp.mail.mh FAQ and mh-e. Vote Libertarian!
If you're passed on the right, you're in the wrong lane.
