On 10/14/2014 at 04:15 PM, Olav Vitters wrote: > On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 06:18:01PM +0200, lee wrote: > >> Considering that the users are Debians' priority, couldn't this >> issue be a case in which significant concerns from/of the users >> about an issue might initiate a GR? Wouldn't it speak loudly for >> Debian and its ways and for what it stands for, or used to stand >> for, if it was established procedure that issues arising >> significant concerns amongst the users can lead to a GR? >> >> I'm sure we could find quite a few supporters for having a GR >> amongst the users (here). And after all, we're all kinda stuck in >> the same boat. A GR might have the potential to make the gap >> between users and devs/maintainers a lot smaller. Otherwise, this >> gap will only continue to become wider and wider. > > Debian is known for focussing a lot on focussing on quality. > Upgrading from one version to the next is expected to be utterly > smooth. Any bug encountered is exceptional.
Definitions of what constitutes "utterly smooth" may vary, however. The "should upgrading from wheezy to jessie automatically switch the init system to systemd, unless the admin has taken some sufficiently clear action to prevent it?" question is one possible example. One side of that debate seems to think that a properly smooth upgrade requires that such an automatic switch take place (because otherwise the init system doesn't get upgraded to what would be put in place by a new install, so the upgrade can't be said to have actually completed); another seems to think that a properly smooth upgrade requires that such an automatic switch *not* take place (because of the chance of breaking existing local configuration, among possibly other things). For another example: some time ago, on debian-devel, the question arose of whether it's reasonable to expect people to reboot promptly after installing e.g. a new kernel, or a new init system. While of course you can't expect to gain any functionality advantage from the newly-installed software until the reboot in those cases, it still seems reasonable to me to expect that no previously-existing functionality will be *lost* in the window between such an upgrade and the next reboot. However, at least one of the systemd Debian maintainers stated in that discussion that while having a "keep going as normal and reboot at leisure" scenario work smoothly would be nice, he does not consider it a hard requirement. (The functionality at hand apparently included, but was not necessarily limited to, power-management functionality - such as the "reboot" button. I think that particular piece of functionality may have been addressed since then, but the larger principle still exists.) I think that for such a scenario to not work would place the upgrade outside the bounds of what constitutes "utterly smooth", and I would consider any such functionality loss to be a bug - quite possibly an RC bug. The maintainer in question, at least, does not appear to think that; he does appear to agree that it would be a bug, but a minor one at best. Thus, definitions vary, Q.E.D.. -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
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