Re: The octave-unstable PPA

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

On 14 May 2013 13:48, Stefan Mahr <address@hidden> wrote:
>> You are now distributing an alpha release as if it were stable. Ubuntu
>> users don't typically learn to discriminate about the stability of
>> their packaging sources. They are conditioned to believe that
>> "unstable" means "Debian unstable" which means "current" which means
>> "the best".
>
> That's your very own opinion. People which dig around to find this
> PPA should be able to understand what stable or unstable means in
> the case of octave.

Most "desktop" users of Debian use Debian unstable. They don't
consider it to be "unstable". Ubuntu users know that Ubuntu is made
off Debian unstable, so the word "unstable" doesn't have connotations
of "broken" to them.

It's not my opinion that a large majority of Debian users use the
unstable distribution and that they carry this perception of stability
to Ubuntu. My own guess, which I don't think is unfounded, is that
they probably will carry this perception to a PPA called
"octave-unstable".

>> I don't know what the download statistics are like, but I am
>> uncomfortable with Octave's reputation being tarnished by the wide
>> release of an alpha release (it's obtained from alpha.gnu.org,
>> after all).
> ...
>> Is it possible to make this PPA private or less prominent?
>
> Around 20 downloads per version. I would not call it very prominent.

Okay, so it's not a problem right now. I hope it stays being not a
problem.

>> The packaging is now diverging from the Debian Octave Group's own
>> packaging, and correct me if I'm wrong, the new packaging isn't
>> even under version control. Or did you guys start by cloning this
>> repo?
>>
>>     http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-octave/octave.git;a=summary
>
> Of course it is diverging, because there is no debian package with
> octave alpha release. You're right, it would be the better way to
> use version control, but at the moment it doesn't worth the effort
> for me.

Version control is less effort, not more.

> Also, I don't think the debian maintainers will care a lot what's
> going on at launchpad.

If you guys are already making changes to the Debian packaging, the
polite thing is to at least let the Debian maintainers know about it.
They might or might not want to incorporate your changes into an
experimental branch of their own clone. It is sort of like a citation
in a paper: just an acknowledgement that you're building off someone
else's work.

>> Will people on various Ubuntu architectures not face problems with
>> this packaging breaking their Octave-Forge packages?
>
> It's a unstable package build from a alpha release. Why the
> packaging should be better than octave itself? :)

Octave itself is still breaking packages this way in Ubuntu? I thought
this had been fixed.

>> Is the quality of this packaging good? Are you making sure you
>> follow Debian policy? Are you pushing your changes back to Debian?
>
> It doesn't make much sense to follow the complete debian policy for
> this kind of development preview.

Then why are you making releases at all, if you're acknowlegding that
you're making releases of lower quality? Why do a botched job and
distribute it to everyone in Octave's name? I am very uncomfortable
with this.

> Also, did you ever looked to the debian patch directory? There is at
> least one patch that could be integrated to octave since years.

I look there occasionally, but I haven't recently. Which patch is
that?

>> While I applaud the enthusiasm of following Octave development
>
> You should really work on your motivation technique. ;-)

I think it's ok to make previews. I just don't like the way it's done.
Can it be done through another channel? Or can you change the name
"unstable" to "broken"? Some sort of word that makes it very clear
that this is not what the GUI is going to look like in the actual
release?

- Jordi G. H.