On Wed, 2022-09-28 at 14:54 -0400, Zack Weinberg wrote: > On 2022-09-28 2:40 PM, Ansgar wrote: > > > If I thought there was a bug in some other package that posed a > > > significant risk of rendering Debian systems unbootable on upgrade, I > > > would have filed a report against THAT PACKAGE. > > > > Okay, so I understand this is an arbitrary requirement for *just* > > usrmerge. Any other package may still break the system (as there are > > enough critical packages). > > I don't understand how you got from what I said to "this is an arbitrary > requirement just for usrmerge". > > It is, in fact, a *non*-arbitrary requirement, spelled out in Policy as > such, that applies to *all* packages. "Potentially breaks the entire > system (e.g. by rendering it unbootable)" = critical-severity bug.
During upgrades, package dependencies might not be satisfied, there is no guarantee that non-essential (as in the Policy meaning of essential) packages work at all, partly-unpacked essential packages are likely also interesting. The system can crash while any of this is the case, not even involving more complex parts like maintainer scripts. This obviously also includes boot loaders and similar. Your requirement is that a system must *never* become unbootable in *all* of these states. Unless of course, it is just usrmerge that is required to provide guarantees that no other package is. (Or change the entire system to mandatory A/B updates or similar things.) So again: please show that other packages don't have such issues in general. I very much don't think so and do not think it is particularily useful to demand this from one specific package. Ansgar
