On 1 April 2013 at 00:16, Josselin Mouette wrote: | Le dimanche 31 mars 2013 à 13:35 -0500, Dirk Eddelbuettel a écrit : | > That is why we have a meta-variable | > | > ${R:Depends} | > | > in Depends: which gets filled by the R version that compiling the package, | > currently 3.0.0~20130330-1. And which prevents the migration. | > | > The same scheme worked before so I am not convinced we need something more | > complicated or formal. | | I don’t understand how you can say it “worked before”. | Let’s say you backport a R package from wheezy to squeeze (something we | tried recently at work). The new R will install without a dependency | problem, and… all modules will stop working. | | > Testing is fine, but within unstable the transition has to be done. | | Testing is not fine. The new R version could migrate to testing without
Not if we blocked it. That's what I was trying to suggest. r-base_3.0.0~20130330 is one day old, there should be a new r-base_3.0.0-1 come April 3. And we don't want that in testing. So we should block it. With that, testing and unstable remain separate as far as R is concerned, and there should be no further issue. And no build issue in testing as R 2.15.1 there should be fine. (R 2.15.3 would be better still...) | the new modules, and testing would be broken. Furthermore, incorrect | dependencies, including across upgrades between stable versions, are | generally considered RC. | | There are reasons why other interpreters have complex dependency | schemes: previously to avoid that. Not only your reverse dependencies | should only depend on the *sufficient* version of R (in this case, | certainly not the R version used to compile the package, which will lead | to transition blockades to testing), but they should stop installing | when the version of R becomes incompatible, and so far nothing | guarantees that. | | Perl has a perlapi-X.Y virtual package to avoid that. | Python generates python (<< X.Y) dependencies to avoid that. | There are tons of similar schemes used across the Debian archive to | avoid such problems, from virtual packages, through autogenerated | dependencies, to package renames. | | It’s OK if you don’t know the best way to do that for your package. This We did not need for the previous 15 years that R has been part of Debian. If the release team strongly insists that I ought to add this, I can. It has not been needed before. And Perl is an odd example as there are multiple APIs / versions used in parallel. We don't usually do that with R. | mailing list is here to ask for advice. But I don’t understand how a | developer who was clearly not born yesterday can knowingly break so many | packages, without adding appropriate Breaks, without coordinating with | the release team, and in the final stage of a freeze. | | I’d really appreciate if you could think twice next time, before | uploading such a big change. I am truly sorry for any harm and headache caused. I greatly appreciate all the work the release team does -- I just did not want to create more work for you. I may well have judged wrong, but I follow past practice with both the R package (which I have maintained for maybe a dozen years) and previous transition experience. Dirk -- Dirk Eddelbuettel | e...@debian.org | http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com -- 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/20824.48251.227989.43...@max.nulle.part