> For backports the general supportability assumption is that you provide a > sane upgrade path from stable to the backports and from the backport to the > next stable (optimally the same package). Once you take the presence of the > stable package out of the mix, it becomes weird. How long do you need to > preserve compatibility code? How does an agile package that does not fit > Debian's release cycle cater to these requirements?
This is wrong, at least in a big part. The stable release cycle does not apply for -backports. A package in -backports can be udpated an arbitrary number of times during the development window of stable+1, leaving us with the exact same issue as you are describing for -volatile. If you take into account edge cases, where a package is removed from testing during the freeze, is removed from -backports as a result, is not released with stable+1, then gets fixed and reintroduced to testing and -backports, it gets even closer. In short: This is a situation every maintainer has to take measures for, be it in -backports or -volatile. -nik
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