Dear Release Team, It's with all my heart that I'm writing to the RT today. I've been working on DTC 0.32 for years, it's both my company flagship software that feeds me every day, and what pushed me to work inside Debian and do all my packaging work. I know it can't be a technical point, but a refusal would both make me feel very sad (that Debian refuses 1 year of commits and hard work), and have huge consequence on my business as well. So please consider carefully what's below.
I have clearly understood the meaning of the testing frozen state, and I clearly understand that I'm asking here to break one of the strongest rules we have in Debian, which is to freeze things before a release. However, I have my reasons to ask for such unblock. There are valid points that are pushing me to write this today. - First of all, we have have been in functionality freeze in DTC since the beginning of last summer. This new version has only receive lots of bug fixes since, and no new functionalities. - I haven't uploaded the new release to SID before, because I wanted to upload only something that was ready and fixed fully. I'd think that saying it was the wrong thing to do, and that I should have leave a problematic version in SID well in advance and ask for multiple bug-fix unblock, just in order to have a chance to get it into Squeeze, wouldn't be the good approach, IMHO. - I have missed the deadline only for few days (12 days, right?). Before that, the RT had more relaxed rules since the debconf10 announcement, which was a surprise for some. - I've been quite busy repairing other packages and focussed on DTC's dependencies first (dkimproxy, extplorer, libdbi, editarea, mysqmail, nusoap, many php-* pear packages, xen-qemu-dm, etc.), as I thought that was the correct order to do things. All this takes time, and I think I've been rushing to do all this too much already, with multiple consequences, in order to meet the deadline. Telling me that I wasn't fast enough and giving even more pressure wouldn't be the good approach, IMHO. If the release team tells me that I should calm down and that I should take more time to fix things correctly, and that they will be accepted, I believe I'll be sending packages with better quality in the future (I will try anyway). - PHP 5.3 has been sent to SID/Testing just few days before the freeze. This has for sure impacted the development of DTC itself, but also some other packages (and I fixed some of them). Raphael also pointed out that time is a problem for the PHP team. We all have to make sure that our packages are in good shape for this new version of PHP. If the RT wasn't ready to accept the consequences of such a big move, then maybe it wasn't a good idea to upload PHP 5.3.2? I'm not sure, and the decision isn't mine anyway. The goal here is just to highlight the difficulties due to this change, not to blame anyone. But I really would like to see as much PHP 5.3 issues fixed as possible, and I've been working actively on it (and I will try to do more soon). The delay in having DTC 0.32 uploaded was one of the consequences of such move for sure. - There has been a lot of people running the latest Git version of DTC in production for months (some with Lenny, others with Squeeze), and none of them have reported big issues with the latest release. It isn't like if it wasn't tested at all... Now that we have officially released, we're getting a lot of feedback. I've pushed a backport of 0.32.2 in GPLHost's Debian repository, and so far, only the new extplorer file manager feature needed a fix (fixed in 0.32.1), another our templates.php (fixed in 0.32.2). I dont't believe there will be so many huge issues, but only minors like these, that will have easy fix. - If the RT was to refuse to migrate 0.32, I'd have 1 year of git-commits backlog to look into, and a lot of work to do in order to have version 0.30.x into what I would consider a good shape for Squeeze, back-porting many patches. Right now, I don't think this is a reasonable thing to ask me, when 0.32.x is ready, and when Squeeze is soon to be released. - *If possible* (that is, if the RT accepts this unblock), we'd like to drop support for version 0.30.x entirely. We already have to support branch 0.29 for Lenny, I wouldn't like to have yet another branch to support. Lenny and Squeeze, that's 2 branches, plus the development one, that makes it 3. If 0.32 that is already released as new stable, is refused in Squeeze, that adds a 4th one (the 0.30.x branch), and I would like to avoid it. Also, 0.32.x is the one that will soon be released for FreeBSD, and we'd like to have it in sync. - I have told my plans to multiple members of the RT (at least 2 of them that I can recall), one of them even told me that he would forward it to the rest of the release team. Since then, I didn't have any feedback at all from the RT. If the RT was to deny my request now, I'd say that it wouldn't be optimum approach. Maybe I should have been told to work on version 0.30.x, rather than intensively working on preparing 0.32.x. At least, nobody told me I had the wrong approach. - I understand the authority of the RT, but I am also hoping here that the RT will trust me as a DD, and as the main upstream author of the package that I am asking an unblock for. But the most important point is this one: - This version 0.32.x is the one that we've been preparing for a year with Squeeze in mind. The version 0.30.20 that is currently in Testing is *not* adapted for Squeeze. It has many PHP 5.3 deprecation issues, dependencies issues, and so on that 0.32.x fixes. 0.32.x has also many bug fixes in general. Also, the latest version solves RC bug #566650 about embedding a pre-compiled binary (for which we have the source code, but as this is a windows app, it can't be built inside Debian). Of course that's not one of the above points (I can fix 0.30.x for this issue). There will be some other updates to this version, because I'm waiting for translations, especially the German one (I know the translator is working on it), but I hope that will be it, and this is still allowed when there is a freeze. FYI, if this unblock is done, I'll have more time to help others on fixing their RC bugs, which is my current plan (of course, I fix my packages first, then only, try to help others). I'll have more time to organize a Chinese mini-debconf with the release of Squeeze in mind, and focus on the forthcoming FOSSASIA, as I live in Shanghai, China. Whole heartedly, Thomas Goirand (zigo) P.S: Because this is *very* important for me, I've been a bit verbose and direct. Many pointed that they don't like my writing style, so I hope this request looks good. Please don't blame me for my style. I'm trying to do my best, and my English writing skills are what they are: far from perfect, written by a French guy. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-release-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4c8ceeed.3040...@debian.org