Policy proposal for compatibility packages

[Patrice Dumas]

On Wed, Jan 02, 2008 at 05:27:51PM -0500, Tom spot Callaway wrote:
> 
> Well, one of the reasons we're making hoops for people to jump through
> is that we don't want to clutter the distribution with compat packages.
> This encourages upstream (and package maintainers) to just continue
> using the compat packages, rather than porting to the new, improved ones.

Your point is moot since it is a valid reason when upstream still uses
an old API. So this cannot be the reason for this unneeded bureaucracy
and this lack of confidence on the packager.

And in any case it is not a good idea to deter by bureaucracy. We don't
want to clutter the distribution with compat packages but we should rely
on packagers to do the right decision about whether a compat package is
useful or not without having to resort to bureaucratic rules. 

Anybody can already raise his concerns about a compat package, why more
procedures and such a veto power for a particular packager?

--
Pat