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No software exists in a vacuum. It's the job of the packagers to create a platform that works as a whole. That's why distributions exist in the first place.

No software exists in a vacuum. It's the job of the packagers to create a platform that works as a whole. That's why distributions exist in the first place. If the upstream releases a new version and the packagers just throw it into the distro, they've created an untested and unsupportable system.

happymellon 6y ago
> No software exists in a vacuum This is true. So stop trying to pull apart tens or hundreds of other people's work hours on some attempt to create some frankenware. The rest of what you wrote doesn't make sense. Of course it would get tested whether they backport or not. Of it doesn't, then they aren't testing what they are doing now. The current state is that we don't get much cross pollination as the version being pushed by RedHat isn't the same as the version being pushed by Debian, so bugs are introduced and resolution doesn't help each other. Your distro doesn't live in a vacuum. Stop acting like it does.
- regularfry 6y ago
  I'm not quite sure what's rubbed you up the wrong way here, but I'll address these points in order: > This is true. So stop trying to pull apart tens or hundreds of other people's work hours on some attempt to create some frankenware. I'm not involved in this, so I'm not entirely sure what you want me personally to stop doing, but I definitely appreciate the efforts of distributions to create systems that work together as a whole, and don't spontaneously fail because an upstream author has put out a new release and is now forcing me to choose between carrying a vulnerability and breaking compatibility. > The rest of what you wrote doesn't make sense. I beg to differ. Perhaps I should simplify my language. > Of course it would get tested whether they backport or not. By whom? There's a reason Debian Stable has a painfully long release cycle, and it's partially because they're taking that time to make sure the complete set of versions you get when you do an `apt-get install <whatever>` works together, as a coherent system. If you change `libfoo-1.0.0` to `libfoo-2.0.0` and just push that out to everyone, the combination of `libfoo` with any of its dependencies or dependents is now untested. You can make a separate argument for rolling release distros if you like, but the problem doesn't go away. Again, this is why the concept of "distribution" came into being in the first place: because throwing together arbitrary versions and expecting the result to work is madness. Or, if you prefer, Debian Unstable. > The current state is that we don't get much cross pollination as the version being pushed by RedHat isn't the same as the version being pushed by Debian, so bugs are introduced and resolution doesn't help each other. Correct. And if upstream authors took responsibility for their previous releases and backported patches themselves, they wouldn't have divergence in the first place. But that's not necessarily workable, so we've got the next best thing: other people keeping the lights on for them. > Your distro doesn't live in a vacuum. Stop acting like it does. I'm not claiming anything of the sort.

happymellon 6y ago

> No software exists in a vacuum This is true. So stop trying to pull apart tens or hundreds of other people's work hours on some attempt to create some frankenware. The rest of what you wrote doesn't make sense. Of course it would get tested whether they backport or not. Of it doesn't, then they aren't testing what they are doing now. The current state is that we don't get much cross pollination as the version being pushed by RedHat isn't the same as the version being pushed by Debian, so bugs are introduced and resolution doesn't help each other. Your distro doesn't live in a vacuum. Stop acting like it does.

regularfry 6y ago
I'm not quite sure what's rubbed you up the wrong way here, but I'll address these points in order: > This is true. So stop trying to pull apart tens or hundreds of other people's work hours on some attempt to create some frankenware. I'm not involved in this, so I'm not entirely sure what you want me personally to stop doing, but I definitely appreciate the efforts of distributions to create systems that work together as a whole, and don't spontaneously fail because an upstream author has put out a new release and is now forcing me to choose between carrying a vulnerability and breaking compatibility. > The rest of what you wrote doesn't make sense. I beg to differ. Perhaps I should simplify my language. > Of course it would get tested whether they backport or not. By whom? There's a reason Debian Stable has a painfully long release cycle, and it's partially because they're taking that time to make sure the complete set of versions you get when you do an `apt-get install <whatever>` works together, as a coherent system. If you change `libfoo-1.0.0` to `libfoo-2.0.0` and just push that out to everyone, the combination of `libfoo` with any of its dependencies or dependents is now untested. You can make a separate argument for rolling release distros if you like, but the problem doesn't go away. Again, this is why the concept of "distribution" came into being in the first place: because throwing together arbitrary versions and expecting the result to work is madness. Or, if you prefer, Debian Unstable. > The current state is that we don't get much cross pollination as the version being pushed by RedHat isn't the same as the version being pushed by Debian, so bugs are introduced and resolution doesn't help each other. Correct. And if upstream authors took responsibility for their previous releases and backported patches themselves, they wouldn't have divergence in the first place. But that's not necessarily workable, so we've got the next best thing: other people keeping the lights on for them. > Your distro doesn't live in a vacuum. Stop acting like it does. I'm not claiming anything of the sort.