Package: wx-common Followup-For: Bug #403237 So far, we've heard mostly from the wxWidgets maintainers, and those who use it in writing or packaging dependent programs. But a much bigger class of users are those who simply want to use applications written against wxWidgets. For example, I'd love to see xmlcopyeditor (http://xml-copy-editor.sf.net) in Debian, but it requires a minimum of 2.8 (it's a new application). I'm not a DD.
Ron wrote: > We can't just keep adding more and more wx versions to the distro, > we need a clear plan to migrate from one to the next. Without that > we will create an awful, confusing, bloated mess for users. The > new release has to prove itself at least as usable as the old one > before it can be considered a viable replacement. There are a couple of things here that I don't really understand: 1. What's the problem with multiple versions? There are plenty of libraries with multiple versions in Debian. I've never been confused or bloated by the myriad versions of libdb I always seem to have installed. This is a problem, caused by upstream, for developers using such libraries, but not directly for users of the programs built with those libraries, because the Debian packaging takes care of the problem for them. Similarly, while it might be nice for developers to have a clear migration path between versions, that's really an upstream problem. There's very little benefit to fixing it in Debian instead. 2. Why does Debian have to stabilise wxWidgets? Stability is a problem for upstream. Of course DDs will sometimes want to patch upstream bugs, but the basic judgement call they have to make is whether a package is of sufficient quality, compared to the effort they're prepared to put into fixing it, to go into Debian. There are clearly plenty of apps using wxWidgets 2.8, so their developers are presumably happy with it. If the Debian maintainer doesn't agree, then he or she can feel free to put a warning on the -dev package, but shouldn't prevent new versions and new apps going into Debian just because you don't think the library is worth writing to. In summary, if you as a DD don't feel proud of packaging a library, and/or don't want to take the criticism for its problems that aren't your fault, then don't package it. If you want to fix it, then go upstream. The current talk of a Debian maintainer team for wxgtk worries me because it looks like either stalling (in which case we don't get updates or new apps), or succeeding (in which case it's wasting DDs' time which would be better spent either fixing wxWidgets upstream, or simply not bothering, and leaving it to users and developers to work out if it's too buggy to be worth their while). I'd also add that I'm upstream of several Debian packages, and one thing that annoys me is DDs who quietly fix bugs without telling me, or simply don't report bugs upstream. Both lead to duplicated effort for everyone, and leads to worse quality for Debian users. I'd much rather DDs would grumble to me (though when they grumble with a patch that's always great!). -- System Information: Debian Release: lenny/sid APT prefers testing APT policy: (500, 'testing') Architecture: i386 (i686) Kernel: Linux 2.6.21-2-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core) Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash Versions of packages wx-common depends on: ii libc6 2.6-2 GNU C Library: Shared libraries ii libexpat1 1.95.8-3.4 XML parsing C library - runtime li ii libgcc1 1:4.2-20070712-1 GCC support library ii libstdc++6 4.2-20070712-1 The GNU Standard C++ Library v3 ii libwxbase2.6-0 2.6.3.2.1.5 wxBase library (runtime) - non-GUI ii zlib1g 1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-5 compression library - runtime wx-common recommends no packages. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
