[suggest] per-Time-Piece package problem

[Dag Wieers]

On Tue, 22 Aug 2006, Aaron Scamehorn wrote:

> First, thanks for the work providing these packages.
> 
> In the following package:
> Name        : perl-Time-Piece              Relocations: (not
> relocatable)
> Version     : 2.00_01                           Vendor: Dag Apt
> Repository, http://dag.wieers.com/apt/
> Release     : 1.2.el4.rf                    Build Date: Sun Nov 27
> 03:19:45 2005
> Install Date: Wed Jul 26 15:20:35 2006      Build Host:
> lisse.hasselt.wieers.com
> Group       : Applications/CPAN             Source RPM:
> perl-Time-Piece-2.00_01-1.2.el4.rf.src.rpm
> Size        : 74071                            License: Artistic
> Signature   : DSA/SHA1, Sun Nov 27 10:47:14 2005, Key ID
> a20e52146b8d79e6
> Packager    : Dries Verachtert <dries at ulyssis.org>
> URL         : http://search.cpan.org/dist/Time-Piece/
> Summary     : Object Oriented time objects
> Description :
> This module contains Object Oriented time objects.
> 
> 
> According to the above modules webpage,
> http://search.cpan.org/dist/Time-Piece/, Version 2.00_01 (and 2.00_00)
> is a DEVELOPER RELEASE.  As such, there is a bug in Piece.pm,v 1.21.  I
> will report this bug to the author of Time::Piece as well
> (http://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=20743).
> 
> Given that Version 2.00_01 is marked as DEVELOPER RELEASE, is it
> possible for you to fall back to Time-Piece-1.09?

Yes, this is clearly a problem. We should NOT (read: NEVER) package and 
release developer releases, beta's or release candidates. Clearly if the 
developers themselves are not releasing it as stable, who are we to decide 
otherwise.

There are of course exceptions to this rule, but only very limited ones.
And certainly not any of the CPAN packages. (One that comes to mind is 
mplayer, since they succeed in doing one release per decade or less :))

 
> I composed this email sometime ago, and sent it directly to dag & dries.
> I've since received a response from the maintainer of Time-Piece that
> bug id 20743 is resolved.  The resolution is: "Resolving as I've
> discontinued the 2.00 line and deleted from CPAN."

And now the big problem is, how are we going to downgrade to 1.09.
I hate to introduce an epoch and much rather remove the 2.00 and just 
update the 1.09 package. That will require a manual downgrade by the 
selected few who have this installed.

Do you know what software requires this package, in order to have a better 
understanding how many people are currently affected ?


Dries, do you know of any other packages (specifically perl-packages) 
where you might have taken and build a developer release ?


Kind regards,
--   dag wieers,  dag at wieers.com,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power]