[Marcelo E. Magallon] > Whilst no insult was meant, it _still_ _looks like_ a silent > decision.
Well, that is one of several explanations. I have no idea if it is the real one, but believe the release team would have the decency to let us know if they made such decision and do not believe the release team made a silent decision to stop the NEW queue processing. But facts remain that the NEW queue process stopped completely a few months ago, and almost only the d-i related packages have been able to get through the "queue" since then. At the moment, 419 source packages are waiting in the NEW queue. The oldest package was uploaded 2002-02-21, but it seem to be one of the packages destined to be ignored, along with seven other packages uploaded before 2004-11-30. The "real" NEW queue seem to start 2004-12-20. From that date, there is no "holes" in the dates when the upload happened. I find all this information on <URL:http://qa.debian.org/~anibal/debian-NEW-summary.html>. So, something happened around Christmas, and the NEW queue haven't been processed as a queue (I mean as first in, first out) since. Anyone know what happened? I suspect the ftpmasters got too much to do elsewhere, making the NEW queue processing drop in priority. Is there any truth in that, or was there something else that happened? The fact that the NEW queue process has stopped affect the project negatively in several ways. I'm involved in two sub-projects having problems making progress because of this. The Debian GIS subproject are working on making GIS tools available in Debian, and need both C, C++ and Java libraries and programs to make it into the Debian archive. The members of this subproject seem to have given up on trying to get their packages into Debian proper, and maintain their own APT source on alioth with the new GIS tools. Getting the tools into Debian proper isn't give much priority, as the package would just be uploaded into the NEW queue and nothing would happen after that. The Debian Java subproject is working on improving Java support in Debian and also moving Java packages from contrib into main. To move Java packages into main, they need to get the dependency Java packages accepted into main first before they can move on to the next level of dependencies. With no progress in the NEW queue, this work is slowing almost to an halt. Some Java developers have moved to Ubuntu because of this, where the NEW queue is processed in at most 2 work days, and lots of Java packages are already moved into main. So the blocked NEW queue either scare people over to Ubuntu, get them to avoid the new archive and make their own or delay the work of improving the packages in the Debian archive. This is really bad for the project. I saw one idea from Joey Hess to make it easier to share the load of processing the NEW queue. That might be a solution to this problem at hand, allowing more people to vouch for the content of new packages. While we wait, I suggest we start registering alternative locations for the packages in the NEW queue. Almost all the packages in the NEW queue is also located elsewhere on the web. If we started to register the URL where the package in the NEW queue can be located outside the NEW queue, more people could have a look at the packages in the NEW queue, and start testing them earlier. At least for Debian Java, it might make a difference. This will not affect the problem of the stuck NEW queue, but it will make it easier for the project to keep moving forward while the NEW queue is stick. -- Petter Reinholdtsen Without any packages in the NEW queue at the moment, luckily -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
