[Pkg-fonts-devel] open-font-design-toolkit is marked for autoremoval from testing

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Hi Daniel,

Quoting Daniel Glassey (2014-11-05 18:57:33)
> On Tue, May 06, 2014 at 02:25:32PM +0200, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
>> Quoting Nicolas Spalinger (2014-05-06 13:45:44)
>>> On 06/05/14 06:32, Christian PERRIER wrote:
>>>> Quoting Nicolas Spalinger (nicolas_spalinger at sil.org):
>>>>>
>>>>> Upstream fontmatrix sources have moved to
>>>>> https://github.com/fontmatrix/fontmatrix
>>>>>
>>>>> Can someone please help prevent this autoremoval?
>>>>
>>>> I'm somehow "tracking" this issue, but the real fix is in the 
>>>> fontmatrix package.
>>>>
>>>> I actually wonder whether it is really a good idea to *depend* on 
>>>> packages. We should maybe only *recommend* this in order to avoid 
>>>> o-f-d-t to be in danger as soon as one of the packages in the 
>>>> toolkit is RC-buggy in the distribution.
>>>>
>>>> So, the fix might be "s/Depends:/Recommends:"
>>>
>>>
>>> Since this is intended to be a meta-package (an empty package which 
>>> pulls in various other packages) what would work best?
>>
>> I believe this is best:
>>
>>   * Use "Depends:" generally, and keep the list up-to-date.
>>   * Use "Recommendends:" if available only on a subset of Debian 
>>     architectures.

I disagree with... oh, I wrote that myself.  I disagree with the past 
me, then:

  * Use "Depends:" only when all users of the (meta)package will 
    _always_ want the related package too
  * Use "Recommends:" generally, and keep the list up-to-date.
  * Use "Suggests:" for related package interesting only occationally
    and when available (including non-free and experimental packages).

Beware that demoting from "Depends:" to "Recommends:" allows our users a 
more fine-grained control over their package compositions, but is _not_ 
a fix to above specific issue - see below...


> Does anyone have any plans to get open-font-design-toolkit into a 
> state for release in jessie?
> 
> Currently it is blocked on RC bugs in fontmatrix (missing sources) and 
> zpb-ttf (maintainers email address fails).
> 
> Would it be sufficient to "Recommends:" on those?

No: Missing recommendations (not only dependencies) is an RC bug!

Thanks for asking explicitly, allowing me to clarify my earlier 
(arguably more distracting than helping) remarks.


> Or would it be necessary to remove the dependencies on those for the 
> package that goes in jessie?

Rather than dropping them, it would be adequate to demote to Suggests - 
if relevant, obviously - i.e. they are expected to get into shape again 
later (even if post Jessie: That might still be beneficial e.g. when 
using backports).


> zpb-ttf is effectively orphaned so I could upload a package to change 
> maintainer to the team. But the version 0.7-2 is way behind the 
> current version 1.0.3 . Would we really want 0.7 in jessie? I think we 
> should just remove the dependency and upload zpb-ttf with changed 
> maintainer to experimental.

Question to ask - this close to release - is not how much older $zyz is 
compared to $newest-shiniest, but whether $xyz is better for our users 
than not at all.

I don't know the package - is that version of that package any good?  
Better than not having it available, or worse than not having it?


> I think it is worth trying to sort out the missing sources for 
> fontmatrix and fix that RC bug.

Fixing RC bugs is always good!  Beware, though, that freeze starts 
*today* - don't get your hopes of too high for convincing release team 
to get those packages included.  Be careful to keep changes extremely 
minimal and follow their guidelines at 
<https://release.debian.org/jessie/freeze_policy.html>.

Work getting those packages into shape is good even if it doesn't reach 
Jessie, obviously. :-)


 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

 [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 949 bytes
Desc: signature
URL: <http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-fonts-devel/attachments/20141105/622b51d8/attachment-0002.sig>