[Pkg-octave-devel] New auto-loading policy

[Sébastien Villemot]

Le lundi 06 avril 2015 à 11:22 +0200, Rafael Laboissiere a écrit :
> * Sébastien Villemot <sebastien at debian.org> [2015-04-05 22:07]:
> 
> > Le dimanche 05 avril 2015 à 10:04 +0200, Rafael Laboissiere a écrit :
> >> In the process of upgrading the octave-control package for the new
> >> upstream version (2.8.0), I saw this entry in the NEWS file:
> >>
> >>    ** In order to comply with modified Octave Forge rules, the package no longer
> >>       auto-loads.  See "help pkg" for details on auto-loading.
> >>
> >> Where can these "modified Octave Forge rules" be found?
> >>
> >> I am remember correctly, we decided to enforce auto-loading in the Debian 
> >> packages.  Is it time to revise our rules?
> >
> > I seem to remember that some time ago there was a discussion on the 
> > Octave lists about removing package autoloading. This seems confirmed by 
> > this message:
> >
> > http://octave.1599824.n4.nabble.com/educate-after-quot-pkg-install-quot-td4669189.html#a4669190
> >
> > Maybe John or Jordi could comment on this issue?
> >
> > If this is confirmed, we should probably remove all our "autoload: yes" 
> > patches, to better reflect upstream decision.
> 
> I think it makes sense to remove all autoload-yes patches.  I do not 
> remember why we took the decision of enforcing autoload for all 
> Octave-Forge packages in Debian, but it was probably not a good decision. 
> Any decent scripting language requires that users explicitly load the 
> needed modules, like Python ("import module") and R ("library(module)").
> 
> I prepared the changes in my local Git repositories and will push them if 
> nobody objects.

My proposal would be to make this change in all 'Forge packages at the
same time as we make the transition to Octave 4.0. We would announce the
policy change in the NEWS.Debian file of the octave package. And that
would ensure a simultaneous migration to testing of the modification in
'Forge packages (at least for the arch:any packages).

-- 
 .''`.    Sébastien Villemot
: :' :    Debian Developer
`. `'     http://sebastien.villemot.name
  `-      GPG Key: 4096R/381A7594


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