On 11/29/25 07:53, Otto Kekäläinen wrote:
packages should avoid dropping backwards compatibility code purely for the sake of cleanup.
I beg to differ. Having tidy packages reduces bugs, improves general quality and eases collaboration.
Code that facilitates upgrades and backwards compatibility should be kept around if there is no special cost to keeping it
There is no such thing. "dead code" is always a maintenance burdern, even if it is only that when reading/looking over it is annoying and takes more time/distractions to wrap your head arround it.
Debian is not famous for having the latest and greatest of everything.
not that I think this is particulary true when comparing Debian stable with e.g. Ubuntu LTS or distributions with similar security support..
..but for the sake of the argument (rhetorical question): just because versions of upstream packages are old we should let our own packaging rot too? I don't think so.
Regards, Daniel
