Weblog entry #30 for Utumno
See all weblog entries made by Utumno.
Suppose there's a situation when some package needs an urgent bugfix or a newer version of it needs to be packaged and the maintainers are unresponsive. How can a user escalate this situation within Debian?
To give a concrete example, I filed Bug 440692 ( request to package a newer version of 'bluez-utils' ) almost two months ago. Several users supported me, including one who offered to package the newer version. 'pkg-bluetooth-maintainers@alioth.debian.org' are however completely unresponsive. The package is still stuck at 3.13 ( I am talking Sid!), even though 3.16 has introduced several very handy features (mainly A2DP - high quality audio streaming to bluetooth headsets and a much easier setup and pairing) and that 3.22 is the current upstream version.
What can I , as a lowly user, do to prod those guys in the butt? Do package maintainers have some 'boss' within the Debian project who can at least ask them what's going on?
Comments on this Entry
[ Send Message | View Steve's Scratchpad | View Weblogs ]
For an urgent bugfix the any registered developer could make an upload of a package, but I don't believe that is appropriate for anything less than an "important" bug.
A wishlist-severity bug of "a new version is available" is worth reporting if the maintainer hasn't appeared to notice, but it isn't critical and usually the best thing to do is to be patient and mail the maintainer(s) privately if there is no feedback.
The only exception I'd make would be if a package was very poorly maintained and had lots of bugs being reported on an ongoing basis with no feedback or comments from the maintainer. Then it would be worth filing patches and aiming to either co-maintain or adopt it after a suitable period.
Of course different maintainers would have different opinions ..
[ Parent | Reply to this comment ]
That's why I filed the bug and waited for 2 months. Several people supported me. Those people even offered to prepare the upload. And yet Debian cannot get better because the maintainer simply wouldn't lift his finger and write a one-liner saying 'go ahead with the upload, I'll sponsor' or even 'I'm busy, get back later'.
Hell, the 3.13 from Sid has been sitting in the upload queue FOR 86 DAYS waiting to be uploaded to testing. Why? Because 'it is not yet compiled on s390'. Well, of course it is not, because all bluetooth related packages are marked 'not-for-us' on s390. And no-one noticed! You call that adequate maintanance?
Yesterday I packaged 3.22 myself. I am not even going to submit it to pkg-bluetooth-maintainers because I've lost all hope they are ever going to wake up.
[ Parent | Reply to this comment ]
[ Send Message | View Utumno's Scratchpad | View Weblogs ]
[ Parent | Reply to this comment ]
In the Perl community if you have a patch to a module on CPAN and the author hasn't responded to a civil request there is a mechanism where you can take ownership or get your fix added to it. I don't know enough about Debian but it's clear that someone else needs to respond if the current maintainer is unable or unwilling to, even if its just to clarify the situation.
--
"It's Not Magic, It's Work"
Adam
[ Parent | Reply to this comment ]
[ Send Message | View dkg's Scratchpad | View Weblogs ]
Yesterday I packaged 3.22 myself. I am not even going to submit it to pkg-bluetooth-maintainers because I've lost all hope they are ever going to wake up.Please do submit it, and submit it publicly (e.g. link to it in a comment in the debian BTS). That way, other people who are interested in it (not me -- i don't do bluetooth) will be able to use your new packages directly, and can use it to put more pressure on the DDs involved.
[ Parent | Reply to this comment ]