[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 16:06 +0200, Sébastien Villemot a écrit :
> 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)

Just to add a few more remarks:

Of course we could theoretically provide backports for all octave-*
packages. But this is a lot of extra work, and I am personally not
willing to do it.

In my view, if someone wants the latest octave and the latest octave-*
add-ons, all through APT, then she still has the option to go for
Debian testing or unstable (of course this comes at an extra cost: 
less stability of the whole system).

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