[Pkg-octave-devel] octave_4.2.1-2~bpo9+1_amd64.changes ACCEPTED into stretch-backports, stretch-backports

[Sébastien Villemot]

Le vendredi 14 juillet 2017 à 15:39 +0200, Rafael Laboissière a écrit :
> Now that octave 4.2.1-2~bpo9+1 is accepted into stretch-backports, I 
> guess that we should backport all packages in stable that depend on 
> liboctave3v5, shouldn't we?

So far the policy that we have implicitly applied to backports is that
we provide octave, but not octave-* packages. That means that if
someone wants to use the backported version, she will have to rely on
"pkg install" instead of Debian repositories for add-ons.

In my view, we provide two use cases for Octave in Debian stable:

- when code stability and standardization are the priority (e.g. for
large deployments, where the same packages are installed on many
computers), users/sysadmins should go for the packages from stable.
They can install octave and many add-ons with a single command. We
guarantee that the codebase will not change during the whore lifetime
of the release, except for major bugs. Backports is not really fit for
that purpose.

- when having the latest version is the priority (typically a
standalone user on his/her personal computer, doing some bleeding edge
stuff), then backports is the right choice. This comes at a cost
though: loss of stability (because backports can be updated anytimes),
and loss of comfort (because add-ons are no longer available via APT)

-- 
⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦   Sébastien Villemot
⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁  Debian Developer
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀  http://sebastien.villemot.name
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