4 ms·

I'm more on the BSD-side, so can someone give an explanation on why bug fixes are not being back ported? I understand long term stable, but I thought that was

• wazoox 11y ago
  The Debian policy states that all software in stable stay at the same version, with patches backported from upstream. I'm not sure it really makes sense as a general policy; at least I'm pretty sure there could be exceptions for some packages with little dependancies, such as xscreensaver. Slackware 14.0 which is way older than Jessie and even older than Wheezy, comes with the latest, 5.34 xscreensaver in its update stream.
• _delirium 11y ago
  There's no policy against backporting bugfixes, it just doesn't always happen due to lack of developers. If upstream doesn't provide backported bugfixes, it requires someone else to volunteer the time/resources to do it. For some packages, companies sponsor long-term maintenance branches, or particularly interested volunteers take it upon themselves to do it. For other packages, nobody steps up to do the work, so it doesn't happen. I've found BSD ports pretty similar (mainly pkgsrc is the one I use). Some are very actively maintained, and others are much less actively maintained. Resources are limited, so pkgsrc maintenance happens only to the extent that someone makes it happen.
  • protomyth 11y ago
    Oh yeah, depending on which one, its a bit slow on the BSD side also. I was just looking at why you wouldn't back port bug fixes as a matter of policy, but I'll take your comment as truth although it seems the conversation in the thread is a bit odd on that point. Thanks.