gregor herrmann writes ("Re: More 5 november in the release schedule"):
> I don't quite understand where all this fuzz about auto-removals
> suddenly comes from. The auto-removals exist since Septemer 2013 [0]
> and they were also in place for the jessie freeze [1], with the small
> difference that now the point-of-no-return is a month before the hard
> freeze, and in jessie it started with the hard freeze.
The fuss is happening because we're in a freeze again, and because a
different group of people happen to be paying attention to these
discussions.
> In my experience, auto-removals before and during the jessie freeze
> were very helpful to keep the freeze shorter than previous ones.
> Personally, I'm not looking back to the releases were we spent month
> fixing RC bugs in packages that noone cared about; with the
> auto-removals from testing, they are no blockers anymore.
Few people (if any) in this thread has suggested that the autoremovals
are a bad idea. Most people even seem to be in favour of the "no
return" idea.
I think what is really worrying people is the fear that they might
miss something, for good reasons, and then find that their work that
they care about is thrown out of stretch.
It is difficult to address this fear with logical arguments intended
to demonstrate that "it won't happen to a responsible maintainer",
because it is so easy to think of scenarios where, at the very least,
it's hard to be sure that the right things would happen.
On the other hand, it would be really easy for the Release Team to
address this fear. All they have to say is that if there is a really
good excuse (maintainer seriously ill; build-dependency broken and
maintainer not notified; or whatever), they will be willing to
consider exceptions.
Wouter Verhelst writes ("Re: More 5 november in the release schedule"):
> [...] If the release team is willing to consider exceptions when
> the automated machinery was jumping the gun a little, however, then
> okay, I think it might be a good idea to try this out.
We tried this with jessie and it worked well.
> Let's say I'm on holiday (or I get hit by a bus and end up in hospital,
> or I get a major project at work which eats up all my time, or whatnot)
> and I don't notice for a while that a package that I maintain gets an RC
> bug. The automated machinery throws the package out before I have time
> to work on the package again. Now what?
If your lifestyle means that you might not notice such an RC bug
because you're on holiday for two weeks, or because of a work crisis,
then there is an overall problem: your packages might actually cause
trouble (and work) for other contributors who are trying to release.
If this happens to you, please find someone to pay attention to your
packages in the meantime. Have them subscribe to the PTS and/or look
at your DDPO.[1]
Of course if you are hit by a bus or something then I hope the release
team would be flexible.
Thanks,
Ian.
[1] I'm volunteering, provided this is an "I'm going hiking for three
weeks in the Scottish Highlands" thing, with defined dates, not a
"please permanently add this to your todo list" thing.
If you have such work crises that you will miss RC bug emails and
autoremovals, you should work on your email filtering. Once you know
about the bug you can ask for help, of course.
--
Ian Jackson <ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> These opinions are my own.
If I emailed you from an address @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk, that is
a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.
