On Thu, Jun 05, 2008 at 09:25:24AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: > the > problem which you are describing is a general one that applies to all > things which were dependencies which have been downgraded to > recommends.
You're describing the problem as if it had a property it doesn't have, which would make it general, and following that, asserting I'm describing a general problem, which I'm not. The problem with bash-completion is that it has *never* been a dependency of bash; it was split off without the intermediate state of being a dependency -- and I'm sure you'll agree that this intermediate state is existing practice (but if you don't, I can find examples). Once it has been a dependency of bash during the etch->lenny upgrade, I'm completely fine with it being downgraded to Recommends, or even Suggests. > > My concern is simply that no transition path has been contemplated. > > We've explained the transition path; it's upgrading while following > the release notes. Given that no resolution has been issued yet, there's no "explaining the". Use "proposing a" if you like, or anything that isn't misleading. Anyway, I don't agree that adding instructions about this in the Release Notes makes the problem disappear for everyone. In fact, I believe in this situation it's not very useful, because the kind of user who carefuly reads the Release Notes before an upgrade is also the kind of user who wouldn't have any trouble figuring out why TAB completion stopped working. > > As a result the burden of figuring out why hitting TAB misteriusly > > stopped working is put on the majority of users, > > The majority of users should be capable of reading the release notes. You're asserting something that is most likely true, but also irrelevant. It doesn't matter that Joe user is perfectly capable of reading the Release Notes if he doesn't actually read them. If you were to assert the majority of users carefuly read the Release Notes, would you have any evidence to sustain that? > There's a reason why we spend the effort writing them. It is laudable that you spend effort writing the Release Notes, and I appreciate your effort. But this doesn't directly archieve the goal that all users follow all the instructions in them. > A failure on > the part of users to read documentation isn't an excuse for crippling > a system, especially when the negative side effects of failing to read > the documentation are minor. What you call "crippling" has been existing practice for ages. We're in the process of redefining that, and honestly I don't see what's the hurry about it. Are you seriously so concerned about those extra 216 kiB in the base install that you consider your system "crippled" because they can't be removed yet? If you look at the dictionary definition of "crippled", you'll see that "missing functionality" is much closer to a match. > > Looks fine to me, but please clone instead of reassigning. > > If we decide that it should be handled in the release notes, that's > where the bug goes. Who is "we"? I just checked the list in http://www.debian.org/intro/organization and you don't appear to be a member of the Tech Ctte. Did I understand wrong, and should the list be updated? > This is not a bug in bash, but a problem stemming > from apt not following policy. This is basicaly true, but then if you consider apt to be the real problem, it's a problem we can't solve untill lenny is released. Which brings us back to how do we solve the problem at hand: bash handling transitions as if apt were following policy, which it isn't yet. > Here's a suggested resolution for a CTTE member to adopt and vote upon > to resolve this issue: I suppose this answers my earlier question. Well, if you're not a member of the Tech Ctte, please don't speak as if you were. Seeing that suggested resolutions are possibly helpful, I thought I could do the same. Here's a suggested resolution for a Tech Ctte member to consider adoption (please excuse me for grammar/spelling mistakes, if any): -------------- Acknowledging that: (1) The lack of Recommends handling in apt has been a long-standing problem within Debian, and that it has been existing practice to use Depends to handle transitions when splitting a package, before the package relationship could be lowered to a Recommends. (2) Although the problem is solved in the lenny version of apt, the etch version is still affected. (3) The Release Notes maintainers may (at their discretion) adopt verbiage recommending that aptitude be used (or apt be upgraded) when upgrading from etch to lenny. (4) Although reading and carefuly following all the instructions in the Release Notes is the recommended practice, it is likely that a significant portion of users (and moreso, those affected by this problem) will only make a partial overview, and therefore is not safe to assume every user will follow all instructions. (5) The functionality currently provided by the bash-completion package is present in the default install of both etch and to-be-released lenny. The Technical Committe resolves: The version of bash that is included with lenny shall Depend on bash-completion to ensure that this functionality is not silently removed. -------------- -- Robert Millan <GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call! <DRM> What good is a phone call… if you are unable to speak? (as seen on /.) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
