[Debian-science-sagemath] pari-sage or pari ?

[Ximin Luo]

Jeroen Demeyer:
> On 2016-08-21 12:17, Ximin Luo wrote:
>> For the purposes of maintaining an OS distribution that satisfies everyone's needs, and not just that of Sage, in the vast majority of cases we do need to stick to release versions. We make exceptions, but these exceptions carry costs and we typically really don't like doing so.
>>
>> The broader FOSS community understand this principle, and also typically use release-versions of their dependencies. So everyone will depend on version 1.4 of libfoo, instead of having project A depend on libfoo=1.4+425 and project B depend on libfoo=1.4+667 and then this is extra burden on volunteer's time to try to add both to Debian.
>>
>> This is why it has taken so long to get Sage into Debian. We are constrained by everything else.
> 
> I understand the cost for Debian, but consider also the cost for Sage. In Sage, we try to use released versions of upstream, but sometimes it's easier to use a development or patched version.
> 
> Being forced to stick to released versions of packages would be very hard for Sage. So we don't plan to do this. PARI is especially bad in this regard because they release so slowly. They made a non-bugfix release this month, but the one before that was more than 2 years ago! We really don't want to wait 2 years to be able to use new PARI features.
> 
> I think you should just accept this fact and live with it.
> 

I'm a Debian developer so my primary concern is Debian's costs.

I don't know what you mean exactly by "accept this fact", nor to what extent you think we're "not" accepting this fact. Debian policy is not going to change, and ordinary FOSS conventions (and IMO good conventions based on decades of software engineering experience) are not going to change based on one project.

I'm a volunteer, if it's not worth the effort for the reward, then I just won't do it. I also have my beliefs about what "good software engineering" is, and packaging less-good software engineering disincentives me further - it's a negative reward as it were.

Sage is not unique in this regard - the general pattern is that more inward-looking teams with higher economic resources and faster development pace, do what you do. Google is another case. But it's simply not economically feasible for us or other volunteer-based FOSS distributions to operate according to the same conventions that you do. If you want to change this situation, go pour lots more money into FOSS and pay many more Debian developers.

>> (BTW, could you fix your mail client to send the proper References: / In-Reply-To: headers, so threading works correctly in standard mail clients?)
> 
> It's not my mail client. I only just subscribed to this list, and I am copy/pasting from the online archives. From now on (like this email) I should do proper replies.
> 

Great, thanks.

X

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