Introducing the "Debian's Automated Code Analysis" (DACA) project [LWN.net]

Introducing the "Debian's Automated Code Analysis" (DACA) project

Posted Dec 20, 2010 19:41 UTC (Mon) by k8to (subscriber, #15413)
In reply to: Introducing the "Debian's Automated Code Analysis" (DACA) project by tao
Parent article: Introducing the "Debian's Automated Code Analysis" (DACA) project

I think the general expectation from some users is that the distribution is a means to conveniently track upstream releases. When this expectation is not fulfilled, it's perceived as a problem. I don't think this expectation is really fundamentally unreasonable, but it does conflict with some other goals. From this conflict and the gap in behavior, gaps between perception and reality arise, and thus criticism.

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Introducing the "Debian's Automated Code Analysis" (DACA) project

Posted Dec 22, 2010 10:40 UTC (Wed) by liljencrantz (subscriber, #28458) [Link]

I must confess to disagree with pretty much every opinion in your entire post. :-(

I don't think users expect distributions to track upstream releases, I think users expect the distributions to put together a set of software that works well together. Sometimes that implies keeping an unstable release back (KDE4.[012]), on rare occasions it means distributing unreleased betas that actually work better than the latest stable release (Emacs).
I think that to the extent users have this expectation, it is fundamentally completely and utterly unreasonable. A distribution needs to consist of packages that work well together. When the latest version of package X switches to a new API, and the critical system package Y uses the API of package X but has not yet been updated to the new API, I think there is a strong expectation that the distribution doesn't jump in and release a new X package and making Y useless.

The above is in complete conflict with the idea of tightly tracking the latest release of upstream, and if a user expects this, informing the users of why his/her expectations are unreasonable is the right course of action, not criticizing the distribution.

Introducing the "Debian's Automated Code Analysis" (DACA) project

Posted Dec 22, 2010 17:05 UTC (Wed) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]

Your view of users is too simplistic. Some expect blissful functionality. Some expect currentness. Some expect both. A significant number don't think too much about the conflicts here.

I was just talking about the trend or set who expect currentness, almost implicitly.

So you aren't actually disagreeing with me at all.