> -----Original Message----- > From: Christian PERRIER [mailto:bubu...@debian.org] > Sent: 07 November 2010 06:44 > To: debian-devel@lists.debian.org > Subject: Re: Debian Installer 6.0 Beta1 release (WPA support) > > Quoting Thomas Goirand (z...@debian.org): > > > I also expressed my regret to not have enough time to work > on it myself > > (I'm currently trying to get this patch to work though...). > > > That is definitely useful. I'd suggest however to coordinate this in > -boot as there seem to be other people working on it. > > But I hope this is clear that, whatever achievements are made, we > won't consider the feature for squeeze. Still, enabling it (even > broken) just after squeeze will definitely be the first action to > take.
I think it is a great shame that the existing patch has not been sufficiently tested for inclusion into Squeeze. It is undeniably embarrassing for one of the premier Linux distributions to ship without WPA support in its installer in late 2010 - it will likely be 2012 before the next release. I am not pointing any fingers and I take some shared responsibility for this failure. The question is, how can we learn from this mistake and avoid such embarrassment in future? I am not familiar with the d-i team's procedures, but would it be possible to proactively "call for testers" of a patch far enough in advance that people like me - who lurk on this list while maintaining only a single low-scoring package - could come out of the woodwork and send you some test results? This may well have been done only on debian-boot: I don't subscribe to debian-boot because the volume is unmanageable and I don't install very often. I suspect this might be quite a common situation for potential testers - perhaps it would be helpful to mirror requests for testing on debian-devel and/or on http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/? Was a pre-built installer provided for testers or were they expected to roll their own? In 2006 I had a long email debate with Geert Stappers and the late Frans Pop about these issues: the difficulty of building your own installer and the steepness of that learning curve (as well as suggestions for splitting debian-boot into a high-volume list for most reports and a lower-volume list for discussion of installer internals). I see from the Debian wiki that there is more information available now than there was four years ago, but there is still a yawning chasm between being able to download and test an installer ISO and being able to check out the source, apply a patch and build your own. Looking back, would it have been better to apply the patch earlier and get more test results that way? I'm unsure on the d-i team's criteria for adding a new patch, but perhaps these could be reviewed so that patches like WPA are mainstreamed earlier and tested more widely? Or perhaps the installer should have "testing" and "unstable" versions so that not-fully-tested patches can be pre-built for people to test in "unstable"? These are just some thoughts. I hope the d-i team will take them as constructive and not offensive. My continued thanks to the entire team for their ongoing efforts to keep Debian excellent. Regards, Chris -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/109decfa7a2e4aa388c57a4fb3cbd...@lbcamden.net
