Re: GNU Automake 1.14 released

[Eric Dorland]

* Dan Kegel (address@hidden) wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 4:43 PM, Eric Dorland <address@hidden> wrote:
> >> That sounds kind of risky, promises of compatibility notwithstanding.
> >
> > Can you elaborate why?
> 
> No.  I'm just being paranoid.  But there is good precedent for
> paranoia being the right setting in matters of backwards compatibility.
> 
> > If the promise of compatibility is real, what's the downside?
> 
> I can think of two:
> 1) users wanting to check to see if their code is compatible with
> automake-1.13
> 2) users wanting to regenerate the same data file as automake-1.13
> did, to avoid unneeded diffs

While I can sympathize with these use cases, Debian isn't there to
provide every version of automake. The vast majority of packages do
not get multiple versioned in Debian and when we do it's almost always
the minimum number of versions necessary.

If these are the only use cases I don't think that justifies carrying
the extra version.

> >> If I were sticking my neck out, I'd keep on with the old scheme,
> >> where automake-1.13 means automake 1.13.  It would surprise people less.
> >
> > Well I think if it doesn't work it shouldn't be difficult to down the
> > road provide an automake1.13 package. So the risk doesn't seem that
> > high.
> 
> But you will still surprise users in the two categories I mentioned.
> - Dan
> 

-- 
Eric Dorland <address@hidden>
ICQ: #61138586, Jabber: address@hidden

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