On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 11:02:10AM +0200, Svante Signell wrote: > Well there is experimental that could be used to package pre-releases > and new releases to make them suitable for unstable and testing _before_ > the freeze! > > Add to that unresponsive package maintainers, refusing to package new > versions of upstream software, even with wishlist bugs filed. Take a > look at the age of some of these bug, both in time and release numbers. > There are people willing to package new releases, but they are blocked > by the current package maintainer. That problem is maybe more related to > the d-d thread entitled: "Hijacking packages for fun and profit" BoF at > DebConf
There are a ton of reasons why Debian may have an older version of an upstream release. For example, and I hasten to point out that the following list is by no means exhaustive, and not all of the possibilities are common: * The Debian package maintainer is dead, but nobody noticed it yet, and nobody has wanted an update badly enough to do an NMU or to adopt the package. * The upstream release is actually a fake. It's a trojan, which was put there by the NSA in order to infiltrate the CIA mainframe. The Debian package maintainer noticed this and uploaded that version of the package to non-free instead of main, since the trojan code does not come with proper source. * Upstream has moved the RSS feed for new releases without notifying the old feed of the move, so the Debian package maintainer missed that, and doesn't actually know about the new release. Due to a complicated series of happenstance involving rainbows, midget unicorns, and the ongoing rewrite of the Netsurf web browser, the Debian package maintainer is not able to find the new feed because it would require doing a web search and their browser doesn't have working form support now. No other browser is available on the Amiga they're using as their only computer, either. * The new release is requested by insistent Hurd porters, and the Debian package maintainer absolutely loathes the Hurd, and will refuse to upload any packages that work on the Hurd. * The Debian package maintainer suffers from mental problems cause by reading debian-devel too much, and now has a nervous breakdown every time they recognize a name as someone whom they've seen on the list. * The Debian development process is being sabotaged by Microsoft sending people to the developers' houses pretending to be TV license checkers or Jehova's witnesses every time they detect, using the hardware wireless keylogger embeddded in every PC, that the developer is trying to run any Debian packaging command. * Apple is also sabotaging Debian by paying me to write snarky e-mails on Debian mailing lists to distract everyone from working on the actual release, so that we can get past the freeze and start uploading things again without having to worry that it breaks things in ways that makes the freeze longer. -- I wrote a book: http://gtdfh.branchable.com/
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