(apologies i forgot to say, please do cc me, i am using the list archives reply-to links at https://lists.debian.org/debian-python/2021/05/msg00036.html)
Thomas Goirand <z...@debian.org> wrote: > All the horrors that you are painting after this paragraph, are due to > the fact that you aren't doing "apt-get dist-upgrade". I'm having a hard > time understanding why you're both: > - not doing "apt-get dist-upgrade" because precisely the difficulties encountered, and due to software development that critically requires more recent variants of what is typically in debian/stable i.e. usually a minimum of one even three years out-of-date. a dist-upgrade to debian / testing - a way to obtain the latest variants of critical software - frequently resulted in massive breakage. i quickly learned never to attempt that again given the massive disruption it caused to me being able to earn money as a software engineer. > - complaining that it's breaking your system ah, you're missing the point by focussing on the background and context. also, i didn't "complain" (despite it causing distress for some considerable number of years), i would have said, "i have a complaint" and stopped at that, rather than moved on to describe the details of what the root cause is. > Could you care to explain? This makes absolutely no sense. i could - but doing so is a distraction. i would prefer to solicit some responses that acknowledge that this is an actual problem that needs solving. Bryan's message unfortunately is a repeat of prior experiences in reporting this issue over the years. > By the way, since you're never doing "apt-get dist-upgrade", it means > your system is full of security issues that aren't getting fixed. > Hopefully, the computer system(s) you're talking about isn't connected > to internet, right? indeed. it's a development laptop on which i am critically reliant for financial income and for furthering free software. Brian May wrote: > A rolling type update might be convenient, but it is not supported by > Debian, and has not been supported by Debian in sometime. There are > complexities in such an arrangement, and it is difficult to test such > arrangements will work as expected. Such an arrangement is not > guaranteed or tested to work. Brian: as an experienced debian systems administrator and python developer I'm not asking for help with either, and over the past 20 years have successfully learned and deployed the techniques required to keep a rolling system operational, in order to keep my business operational and not lose money due to massive downtime either from having to transfer 10 million source code files from laptop to laptop, or from having to perform disaster recovery due to breakage. like Thomas, you are missing the point by focussing on the context and background material rather than focussing on the problem. this was also the tack taken by others when i explained the problem: "it's your own fault, this isn't supported, therefore we don't have to do anything, therefore it's not a bug, therefore the bugreport is summarily dismissed". in my report, if you read it again carefully, i specifically stated that *multiple debian maintainers* are receiving *multiple complaints* of breakage and disruption due to the standard debhelper-python build system not following the "safe" practice outlined by numpy and sci-py. i can only surmise that they probably don't want to say anything because the message being sent to them on summary closure of bugreports is that, well, "nobody cares". what i can say is that they're getting pretty fed up of constantly having to close bugreports, every time someone raises this issue, that's pretty clear from what they didn't say, if you know what i mean. once this is accepted as actually being a problem that needs solving, rather than being avoided because "it's not supported, you're on your own, not our problem", i am happy to help advise and discuss solutions. given that this has been ongoing for 10 years now i have been giving it some thought for a long, long time. however before getting to a discussion of solutions i would prefer to see acknowledgement that it is recognised as a problem that people actively wish to see fixed. otherwise i will have to wait patiently for the next disaster situation to occur, or, sadly, after 20 years of using debian, and remaining loyal to it despite maltreatment, i will have to find an alternative distro. what is stopping me from doing that is the severe financial consequences involved and risk to myself and my family due to my income being far below average. the downtime that would result is a huge risk, plus learning a new distro also compromises my effectiveness which also results in further lost income. what i am saying is: this is serious - i am effectlvely financially trapped and critically dependent on the decisions that you make, even though i am not paying you money for the work that you do. l.
