"The Debian exim 4 packages suck badly" on exim-users@exim.org

Goswin von Brederlow · *nix forums Guru Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 658

Andreas Rottmann <a.rottmann@gmx.at> writes:

Kevin Mark · *nix forums Guru Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 474

On Wed, Feb 02, 2005 at 06:46:03PM -0700, Joel Aelwyn wrote:

Eric Lavarde · *nix forums beginner Joined: 19 Mar 2005 Posts: 13

Hi,

as I understand myself as someone aware of the support problems of
software problems, I would like to point to 2 problems:

1. the Debian Kernel is a bit different from the kernel.org Kernel;
example: at work we used the Apani VPN client, which did work under all
kind of RedHat/SuSE kernel, but not under the Debian kernel, even though
there is some compiling done at installation time (i.e. not only
binary modules delivered).

2. as a software provider, you need to be able to reproduce the problem
of your customer to solve it (at least for non-obvious problems), so
that you can reproduce the problem in your environment, debug, correct
and test again. (I would also imagine there could be some legal
implications if you are officially supporting a certain setup, but
practically aren't able to support it properly; but we want to stay out
of the court Wink

).
What is the consequence? you need a limited amount of possible
combinations, you need to have a stable system (in the sense: not
changing every three weeks) and you would greatly appreciate to be
informed of changes that might break your system before your customer
actually installs the patch/update/whatever.
Imagine a customer doing regularly an apt-get update & upgrade in order
to be sure to have the latest security fixes, and all of a sudden, your
expensive software stops to work, at all of your customers, almost at
once. You're out of business! Game over!
I'm exagerating a bit but that's what they want: no surprise, be able to
clearly define what is supported and what not (e.g. self compiled kernel
or not?!), have a chance to test before their own customers do.

This said, I don't have a clue who at Debian could provide this to them;
though I'd think Debian is probably best in these aspects than some
other platforms starting with W. Probably some training to understand
how Debian is working and structured might just be what they need.

Cheers, Eric

Tim Cutts wrote:

Otto Wyss · *nix forums beginner Joined: 04 Mar 2005 Posts: 42

Goswin von Brederlow wrote:

Goswin von Brederlow · *nix forums Guru Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 658

Otto Wyss <otto.wyss@orpatec.ch> writes:

Otto Wyss · *nix forums beginner Joined: 04 Mar 2005 Posts: 42

Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de> wrote:

Goswin von Brederlow · *nix forums Guru Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 658

otto.wyss@orpatec.ch (Otto Wyss) writes:

Dirk Eddelbuettel · *nix forums beginner Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 30

On 1 February 2005 at 14:46, Martin Michlmayr wrote:
| * Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd@debian.org> [2005-01-15 11:51]:
| > Please CC me on follow-ups to debian-devel, or email me directly if
| > you have any interest. I should follow up with RFA and O bug reports
| > over the next few weeks, but doing this informally first may be
| > simpler. Or maybe not.
|
| Did you keep track which packages have been spoken for and for which
| you still need to file RFA or O reports?

Sorry for not replying sooner, but I was under the weather with some sort of
flu and slept every non-work hour of the last two days.

| It seems at least tob is still outstanding. Gunnar Wolf seemed
| interested in some of the Perl packages but it's not quite clear to me
| which he'll actually adopt.

I'll quote from my original email and then summarise by paragraph:

On 15 January 2005 at 11:51, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
| * the Octave complex

-- is now in the hands on the pkg-octave-devel group with octave2.1 as the
first (and only, so far) release. Thanks to Rafael for organising and
spear-heading this.

| * the gsl set:

-- is still mine though Bas Zoetekouw indicated that he would like to help. I
think I got Chris Steigies to agree to help too.

| * the Perl "spreadsheet" complex:
| - spreadsheet-writeexcel
| - spreadsheet-parseexcel (2 old open bugs, forwarded ages ago)
| - ole-storage-lite
| - dbd-excel (1 old open bug, forwarded)

-- was picked up en bloc by Gunnar Wolf, and already uploaded. Thanks, Gunnar!

| * other Perl packages:
| - dbd-odbc
| - finance-streamer
| - inline-octave [ related to Octave ]
| - math-numbercruncher
| - statistics-descriptive

Still up for grabs. Only dbd-octave had upstream releases lately -- and
should find a new home. The others are more esoteric. If it gets too bad I
can always orphan them later.

| * bc (with binary packages bc and dc)

-- picked up with an immediate upload by John Hasler. Thanks, John!

| * Miscellaneous
| - afio (2 open bugs, active upstream, pretty straightforward)

Picked up Erik Schanze who already uploaded a new package with several
patches that have since been blessed upstream. Thanks, Erik! (Eric is not a
full DD, if his AM reads this, my thumbs up!)

| - time (dead upstream)

-- picked up by Tollef (no new upload yet). Thanks, Tollef!

| - tob (fairly dead upstream despite CPR and a new upstream author recently)

-- still mine, but not that much work.

| - wajig (very active upstream, and well maintained upstream)

-- now officially Grahams, and I sponsor him -- Thanks, Graham!. Effectively,
that is what have done for the last one or two years anyway. (Graham is not a
full DD, if his AM reads this, my thumbs up!)

I still have approx 70 other packages ...

Dirk

--
Better to have an approximate answer to the right question than a precise
answer to the wrong question. -- John Tukey as quoted by John Chambers

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Brian May · *nix forums Guru Wannabe Joined: 27 Feb 2005 Posts: 109

Don Armstrong · *nix forums addict Joined: 22 Feb 2005 Posts: 88

On Fri, 04 Feb 2005, Brian May wrote:

Wouter Verhelst · *nix forums Guru Joined: 04 Apr 2005 Posts: 558

On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 04:31:02PM +0100, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:

Brian M. Carlson · *nix forums beginner Joined: 21 Feb 2005 Posts: 28

On Fri, 2005-02-04 at 09:20 +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote:

Bernd Eckenfels · *nix forums Guru Wannabe Joined: 21 Feb 2005 Posts: 148

In article <20050204082016.GC28597@grep.be> you wrote:

Bernd Eckenfels · *nix forums Guru Wannabe Joined: 21 Feb 2005 Posts: 148

In article <1107507057.6328.23.camel@localhost> you wrote:

Tim Cutts · *nix forums beginner Joined: 08 Aug 2002 Posts: 30

On 3 Feb 2005, at 5:53 pm, Eric Lavarde wrote:

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