Re: [gentoo-dev] Textrels in packages policy

[Ciaran McCreesh]

On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 01:20:29 +0000 Mike Frysinger <vapier@g.o>
wrote:
| the policy i consider a no-brainer, fix TEXTRELs

So... Say libfoo is a library that decodes files in the foo format. Say
also that libfoo-2.1 is currently marked stable, and does not contain
any TEXTRELs, but only supports foo files using the foo-1 format, which
is rapidly becoming obsolete. Then, if libfoo-2.2 comes along, and
introduces support for the rapidly becoming very widely used foo-2
format, should libfoo-2.2 be held back from being marked stable purely
because of a TEXTREL?

What about if, instead, libfoo-2.1 contains a security bug that is
fixed by libfoo-2.2?

What about if, instead, libfoo-2.1 has a nasty bug that will cause it
to lose data under certain circumstances?

See, any policy on TEXTRELs will have to be *very* carefully worded to
avoid having people think that they're something important... Otherwise
we'll end up with broken packages being left in stable simply because
newer versions contain TEXTRELs. Don't overhype the problem -- make it
clear that it's a "would be nice" issue, or else you'll encourage even
more superstition than we have already...

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (I can kill you with my brain)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm