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

Josip Rodin joy at debbugs.entuzijast.net
Thu Apr 12 07:24:57 UTC 2012


On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 01:23:03PM -0600, Bob Proulx wrote:
> It is really a backdoor to enable things that are not handled by full
> Debian packages. But being unhandled means that the local user admin
> really needs to manage the problem themselves.

Well, I think that if we have a facility to detect the fact that this
upgrade is breaking local user admin's stuff, the immediate priority is to
help them with that, because otherwise we get in the situation where they
can say "the Debian upgrade broke stuff on this machine", and they aren't
wrong.

In fact, this can be used as an opportunity to tell the user "oh, we see you
have the PECL module 'radius' - you can prevent this message in the future
by installing the equivalent 'php5-radius' Debian package and stop worrying
about the ABI".

> One of my concerns over the feature is that I haven't seen anything
> similar implemented in any of the other languages which have similar
> tools.

IIRC there's the persistent discussion with people who think Debian packages
separate from PECL/CPAN/whatever are worse than the original.

This kind of an ABI error detection and messaging would not prevent those
kinds of concerns, but it would certainly alleviate them because we wouldn't
force our packages on the users. We would simply combine the tools from both
parties to inform users something that is important for them. That seems
pretty fail-safe.

-- 
     2. That which causes joy or happiness.





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