Re: pkgsrc stability vs. updates

[nia <nia%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

On Sat, Mar 08, 2025 at 10:18:59PM +0000, nia wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 07, 2025 at 10:58:33PM +0100, Thomas Klausner wrote:
> > On the other hand, if we have too high requirements, then people will
> > just stop updating packages, because they don't want to deal with the
> > fallout. Just as one example, I don't think it's reasonable to expect
> > one person to fix all packages using boost when updating it - here's
> > (not just boost, in general) where I hope for a common effort. (I
> > think I have fixed more than my fair share of boost fallout which is
> > why I dare use it as example :-) ).
> 
> Our approach to boost is "more instability than Debian Stable".
> As a smaller project it definitely makes sense to delay updates
> until the rest of the ecosystem has caught up.

Oops - brain fart, I meant Debain Unstable here. ;)

> > Another one that I think is a too-high requirement is what dreckly
> > claims to aim for - no regressions on any platforms in the CI.
> > Because at least I for one don't have the setup to test or fix seven
> > or more operating systems, and I don't know anyone else who has (with
> > perhaps the exception of Jonathan). CI is nice in telling you when
> > something breaks, but it's bad for actually fixing stuff because you
> > can just submit "guess-fixes" and wait for the next run to tell you if
> > it fixed the problem. This is highly inefficient.
> 
> Most fallout is very easy to fix: a PLIST entry here, a missing
> dependency there. Most of my 10 thousand commits are one or two
> line fixes.