[php-maint] Bug#458436: Bug#458436: Bug#458436: php-pear doesn't warn when modules are upgradeable

[Josip Rodin]

On Mon, Apr 09, 2012 at 02:06:13PM -0600, Bob Proulx wrote:
> > If you're saying that the package is not responsible in any way for what
> > happens next, then I'd say that the package has literally led the user into
> > a trap there, and we've descended so much below the quality standard of
> > 2008, it may even warrant a request to remove such software from Debian for
> > being harmful to its users. And it's now 2012, BTW. :P
> 
> This isn't specific to php and is a problem with perl, python, ruby
> and other languages too.  You have fallen into a trap thinking that
> upstream will create some random pseudo-package method and that it
> will always be able to interoperate with apt.  That just ain't so.  In
> most cases being able to make those interoperate would be impossible.
> 
> At worst I think going down your line of reasoning would force that
> Debian must disable and remove (as you said) every upstream
> pseudo-package tool.

Oh for crying out loud, you are arguing against something that I never
actually argued for. My main point has always been that the package has the
responsibility to make a good faith effort to help the user once the package
is already installed and is being upgraded, just like it helped the user get
it running in the first place. I am not arguing against the whole notion of
having these tools, that sentence above was simply a demonstration of how
asinine the other line of reasoning has gotten.

> > I don't see how it's very hard to solve the original bug report, which said:
> > 
> >  The package should make some sort of an effort to warn that an upgrade is
> >  necessary, maybe have a debconf prompt that offers to run pear upgrade-all
> >  and pecl upgrade-all when modules with an old ABI version are detected.
> 
> At that point I think the severity is a wishlist.  It would be a new
> and never before implemented feature.  It would be waiting for
> contributed code that might actually do it.

It's a new feature in the packaging department, but not in the software
itself - the code for checking the versions that need to be upgraded
practically already exists inside the p* upgrade-all commands.

It just has to be simplified a little bit to get it to merely indicate
the status rather than do the whole upgrade action. Then the maintainer
script can run that and display a message if the status is problematic.

Heck, for all the time spent three people have now spent arguing against
straw men and pissing off the good-faith bug report submitter by way of
haggling over bug severities, someone could have just checked if it already
exists or done it themselves.

-- 
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