Unhelpful update descriptions

[Debarshi Ray]

> "First even if broken" is a pretty extreme interpretation of "First".
> 
> "First working" is much better - and it fits with the purpose of a
> distribution, to make sure that the various pieces are integrated
> together (and to help upstream make it happen if necessary).

There is no way you can test a constantly changing pool of software
packages.  As a tester or developer you test a combination X, but you
have no way of knowing that an end-user will get the same combination
because some other packager somewhere else has pushed an update to
another package which might completely invalidate your test.

Then again different mirrors in different parts of the world can be
syncing at different rates or at different points of time. Which means
that different people are being fed randomly different sets of
packages.

How do I know that the webkitgtk3 that was pushed works with the
version of libsoup or gtk3 that is in the repository? I can't because
a new libsoup or gtk3 package might have been built while my
webkitgtk3 package was still building. Hence this combination of
libsoup, gtk3 and webkitgtk3 that we feed the user is totally untested
Rawhide quality code.

This is why we have freezes.

So that we can let things settle down. So that we are reasonably sure
that all testers and developers are testing the same set of
packages. So that we have sufficient time for testing the whole
system. So that we are sure that all users are fed the same set of
packages that we tested.

It is a bit strange that we freeze before the release, and then move
on to a Rawhide like environment where anything can be pushed by
anybody at any point in time.

We have been working around this by semi-formally co-ordinating all
GNOME updates to stable releases. Like all workarounds it is not
ideal. We still get bitten by random packager pushing random update
that broke a stable distro, or by an update to a package much lower
down the stack (say gnutls) that ended up breaking things elsewhere
(say telepathy-gabble).


Happy hacking,
Debarshi


-- 
If computers are going to revolutionize education, then steam engines and cars
and electricity would have done it too.  -- Arjun Shankar
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