[Pkg-clamav-devel] [SRM] clamav 0.94.x EOL

[Philipp Kern]

On Thu, Oct 08, 2009 at 08:31:49AM -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> I do not think removal is the approach that would be best for users.  It 
> would leave them with an orhpaned, non-working package and they will have 
> to upgrade systems to a newer release, install from external sources (e.g. 
> volatile), or compile from dource directly.
> 
> Updating clamav and needed rdepends to something that upstream supports 
> would be more benificial for users.  With a half a year of notice, I think 
> this is managable.
> 
> This is the approach Ubuntu will be taking (they already have a full set of 
> updates in their backport repository that is tested and almost ready).

Especially as there is no use in keeping old versions of a virus scanner
around which cannot be updated anymore and as a sufficient amount of people do
want a virus scanner on their box.

I ask me, though, how many people are actually using the version Lenny
provides.  If they do, they probably do not know it better to use volatile,
or do not trust it because it's not as official as the stable suite is.
Of course we could do a noisy drop of clamav out of Lenny and point people to
volatile, I just wonder if that's actually a disservice to our users.

For squeeze I see two proposals:
 a) Either we could relax the policy for clamav a bit if sufficient upgrade
    testing is ensured (like Ubuntu already does, thanks to Scott's work)
 or
 b) We push volatile to be a really official service alongside the stable
    tree residing on our normal infrastructure as a goal for squeeze.
    Volatile updates are currently undergoing testing (thanks to the clamav
    team) but maybe a coordinated effort in reviewing for stable suitability
    of the Ubuntu and Debian counterparts of clamav maintainance would help
    us to convince a possible set of people not using volatile yet.

Now b) was already planned, but hasn't got any progress in the last months.

Kind regards,
Philipp Kern
-- 
 .''`.  Philipp Kern                        Debian Developer
: :' :  http://philkern.de                         Stable Release Manager
`. `'   xmpp:phil at 0x539.de                         Wanna-Build Admin
  `-    finger pkern/key at db.debian.org
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