policy proposal: updating packages with many dependencies

[Thomas Klausner <wiz%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

Hi!

I (with my pkgsrc-pmc hat on) am thinking about instituting the
following policy:

--- start ---

Before committing non-micro version updates to any of the following
packages:

- boost
- erlang
- go
- icu
- llvm
- poppler
- rust

a limited bulk build of meta-pkgs/bulk-test-${PACKAGE} needs to be
run and the result posted to tech-pkg, highlighting what packages
would stop building (if any).

Depending on the result, pkgsrc-pmc then decides:

- go ahead with the update

- wait for packages X, Y, Z to be fixed (upstream or locally) with the
  updated version, which is put in wip in the meantime

In the second case, all pkgsrc developers are encouraged to work on
fixing this - it is not only the updater's task to fix them.

The decision to wait for packages can be revisited.

--- end ---

Rationale:

- the packages above either had extensive fallout before, or affect
  important packages like firefox.
- we want to have recent versions of software in pkgsrc, but
- also want to have small windows where packages do not build
- we didn't have clear rules for this before, which lead to different
  expectations from different people

Comments?
 Thomas