A few hours ago, during the UDS "Java Library Housekeeping" session, we discussed the damage that was done during the Lucid and Maverick cycles by introducing new versions of Java libraries late in the cycle.
The problem is that our main Java stacks, and in particular Eucalyptus, can break quite late in the cycle when one of those libraries in synced or merged from Debian. Lots of these seemingly innocent library updates introduce API breaks which require some significant amount of adaptation on the library-using software. In some other cases, it introduces new dependencies, which usually push the package in component-mismatches and require triggering dozens of MIRs (by virtue of the Java dependency hell). This is acceptable at the beginning of the cycle, but later in the cycle it's a lot of pain for questionable benefits. So we would like to introduce the idea that Java libraries should not be merged or synced after a date called JavaLibraryFreeze, unless there is a compelling reason to do so (i.e. something we have packaged requires the new version). This JavaLibraryFreeze must obviously occur at the same date or shortly after DebianImportFreeze. I'd suggest that both are on the same date, but maybe that's a bit too extreme. This would obviously be a soft freeze, so it doesn't prevent damage from being done, but we hope to make it a bad practice and reduce the problems we experienced over the last cycles. Comments ? -- Thierry Carrez Ubuntu server team -- ubuntu-devel mailing list [email protected] Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
