[Pkg-rust-maintainers] Bug#945542: Bug#945542: debcargo -- Randomly adds and removes binary packages

[Russ Allbery]

Bastian Blank <waldi at debian.org> writes:
> On Fri, Nov 29, 2019 at 10:35:04AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:

>> Procedurally in Debian neither of these are justifications for setting
>> the severity to serious.  This is not a Policy requirement that has
>> reached consensus, and the release team is the team in Debian that has
>> the delegated responsibility to determine which bugs are
>> release-critical for the next release.

> My plan was to get the problem acknowledged and then accept the
> remaining waiting Rust packages from NEW.

> This problem is already listed since a long time in
> https://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html.

I assume you mean the "Package split" point there?  If so, I think it's
clear the Rust packaging team did think about this split and is doing it
for specific technical reasons, and the disagreement is over the merits of
those reasons.

(If you mean some other point of the REJECT FAQ, I'm not sure which one
you're referring to.)

>> I realize that you're frustrated, and I suspect you're feeling like the
>> Rust package maintainers are not respecting something that you think is
>> obvious, but I don't think that fighting over the bug severity is the
>> right way to approach this disagreement in Debian.  If you feel that
>> you've reached an impasse in this discussion, this is what the
>> Technical Committee is for.

> The problem is not about severities, but about the Rust team to
> acknowledge that there is a problem.

Right, but it's not in the power of anyone in Debian to require some other
person in Debian acknowledge there is a problem (and this is good).

I don't think there's a disagreement here over the technical impact of the
packaging model used for Rust crates.  The disagreement is about tradeoffs
between ease of packaging, dependency resolution, and the size of the
Packages file, and different people are arriving at different conclusions
because of their different weighing of those concerns.

In that situation, if that discussion reaches an impasse and no one can
come up with a breakthrough technical solution to resolve the problem, it
seems appropriate to me to invoke the Technical Committee to help evaluate
the tradeoffs.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at debian.org)              <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>