On 7/1/22 10:46, Dominique Leuenberger / DimStar wrote:
Now, as this is 'only' ~3k packages, this leaves a gap of like 12k packages. Those are only tested to build/install properly when they are submitted to Factory themselves - any later changes are not tested on cross-impact - so they can fail to build
This is what happened to nextcloud-desktop now: it failed to build since Mid June. But it was still installable, so 'nobody seemed to care'
Two weeks later, a new Qt version comes by; nextcloud-desktop still not building results in 'dependencies no longer being available'
Striving for a 0-build fail would be a nice-to-have, but in the ~8 years as release manager I have never seen that. The closes to that must have been in the range of 20 failures (curretnly we are at ~200)
As my daughters would say "OMG, has it been 8 years already!" Unfortunately, I had been in this game a little longer than that. By the way, congratulations on doing a great job!! As the maintainer of a complicated package (VirtualBox) that frequently fails to build in its 3 homes of TW, Leap 15.3, and Leap 15.4, I get E-mails every time there is a build failure. If a maintainer ignores those warnings, or there is no active maintainer, then you can end up in the situation that nextcloud-desktop is in. Finally, as a maintainer nearing EOL (I'm 82), I implore people to become maintainers, particularly if you have a vested interest in a particular package. These things do not fix themselves, and bitrot is real. Is there a list of packages that need active maintainers other than Dimstar's "fails to build list?" If not, there should be. I am still well, but I think it would be in the best interests of our community if someone else took over VirtualBox while I am still around. When I took over, I was on my own. Fortunately, I got general help on some details of package building, but it would have been nice to have been able to consult with the previous maintainer. A README.build is being maintained, but that is imperfect. Larry