Bug#737013: MATE packaging is currently work in progress

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

On 02/23/2014 07:16 AM, Vagrant Cascadian wrote:
> If jessie were released today, would this package really be useful?

No, it wouldn't, you're right. But MATE consists of more than just
one package. Granted, we should have probably uploaded to experimental
first, but we have opted for unstable now and have to live with that.

Blocking just one package with an RC bug isn't really helpful either,
we'd have to block all MATE-related packages if we really want to
be sure that nothing breaks, wouldn't we?

> If it's not ready for release, it shouldn't land in testing... and an RC bug
> would be an appropriate way to keep it out until it's actually ready...

True. But since we know Jessie isn't going to be frozen until November
5th [1], I don't see any reason to kick off any discussions about the
current usability of any packages in testing or unstable yet.

We're right in the middle of the development process of the upcoming
Debian Jessie release and things are expected to break. And bug reports
like these just distract the maintainers from doing their job. If you
want something stable, use Debian stable. I know that Debian testing
comes with a certain level of QA, but it's still not guaranteed to be
as stable as the real Debian stable.

The MATE packaging efforts have gained lots of momentum recently and
many others have joined the team to help us with great results. MATE
in Debian has made great progress due to these people investing lots
of their free time into it and I am very happy to have these guys!

So, instead of complaining in bug reports, I'd rather see people
joining and helping us to mitigate these issues as quickly as
possible.

Adrian

> [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2013/10/msg00004.html

-- 
 .''`.  John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' :  Debian Developer - glaubitz at debian.org
`. `'   Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaubitz at physik.fu-berlin.de
  `-    GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546  0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913