[GNU-linux-libre] Re: any Free BSD variant?

[Yavor Doganov]

Karl Goetz wrote:
> > Dak will reject any upload if it has no .debs.

> this is quite... disturbing ... since I've always understood that
> all packages could be built on buildds.

Yes, this is a problem, although in practice mistakes are very rare.

In theory and in practice ALL packages could be built on the buildds,
and this is in fact a hard requirement for a new architecture (like
now -- the kfreebsd-i386 and kfreebsd-amd64 official buildds are
building the whole archive from scratch).

The last time this was extensively discussed is in this thread:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2007/01/msg00760.html

> I'm not sure how a framework can enforce testing.

It cannot.  Even if dak runs lintian on the *.changes, people could
still shut it up with overrides.

But certain setups can and lead to less testing; quoting from the
above message:

| (b) source only uploads are in my experience very often badly tested
|     if they're even tested at all.  For a long time after Ubuntu
|     switched to source only uploads, it was really obvious that a
|     large number of them hadn't even been test built, never mind
|     installed or used.[3][4]
| ...
| [3] And for some of these people the quality of their uploads was a
|     metric of their (paid) job performance...
|
| [4] There are ways you can attempt to mitigate this (e.g. require
|     binaries but then throw them away), but when you do that, the
|     mindset is still that no one will use (-> you don't have to care
|     about) the binaries that are being uploaded.

The explanation in the last point (which was my suggestion) makes
sense.

> I don't agree they should be installed by default though (and I
> think we are unlikely to agree).

We'll agree to disagree for the time being, then.
Maybe you'll change your mind when you encounter enough wasteful bug
reports with no further feedback from the OP...