[Python-modules-team] Bug#831336: python-cffi: Versioned Provides not supported by buildds

[Stefano Rivera]

Hi Sebastiaan (2016.08.01_19:06:05_+0200)
> Control: tags -1 - moreinfo

You didn't actually provide much info, just asked me to talk to other
people :)

> Try to build the affected packages on the buildds

Well that presumably just-works. Because there haven't been any other
issues with regular uploads. This seems to be specific to binNMUs.

> I only know that this issue was preventing the vtk6 builds on the
> buildds, those didn't have proper support yet at least. You should ask
> the buildd admins whether the fixed this issue too. #786803 is only for
> britney which does testing migrations, it doesn't add support for
> versioned provides to the buildds.

Again, I don't understand what "support for versioned provides on the
buildds" means.

> I can't help you further, I was only affected by your choice to enable
> versioned provides. As long as they're not documented in the Debian
> Policy you cannot expect all tools to handle them, britney is only one
> of many.

Debian Policy tends to lag behind accepted norms. We try things out
first, then document them in policy.

c.f. multiarch. It's widely used and a best practice, even though it
hasn't made it into policy yet. I'd call that example a failure of
Debian policy, but it is a good counter-example to your statement.

Yes, I'm a very early user of versioned Provides. But not the only one,
and so far, it's been pretty uneventful.

Somebody has to be the first person to use new things, get bitten by all
their bugs, and get people to start working on fixing them.

SR

-- 
Stefano Rivera
  http://tumbleweed.org.za/
  +27 72 419 8559
  +1 415 683 3272