Handling framework packages in distros

[Martin Steigerwald]

Am Montag, 11. Juli 2016, 08:14:28 CEST schrieb Martin Graesslin:
> On Saturday, July 9, 2016 6:42:57 PM CEST Martin Steigerwald wrote:
> > Hello!
> > 
> > In Debian we saw versioned dependencies in KDE framework packages
> > repeatedly. Like krunner not working with a partial mix of 5.23 and 5.22
> > framework packages in Debian testing¹.
> > 
> > Thus I want to clarify on upstream recommendations here:
> > 
> > I bet you do not document and in some cases maybe don´t even know all
> > cases
> > where a newer framework module requires another new framework module, but
> > rather expect distros to upgrade all KDE Framework packages in lockstep.
> > 
> > Is that true?
> 
> Kind of. Frameworks are considered as one product and a mix of framework
> versions is neither tested nor supported by upstream. Higher tier frameworks
> do specify the dependencies to lower tier frameworks by the same version
> number. That is every dependency is found by the exact version number.
> 
> On the other hand updating a framework should not break existing software. I
> don't know what exactly went wrong in the mentioned bug as there is no (?)
> crash trace included and also don't really understand the bug report (too
> much noise). Maybe it's just a missing dependency somewhere?
> 
> > Since the order in which packages enter Debian Unstable and especially
> > Testing is not predictable this creates issues for users of these Debian
> > versions and also leads to bug reports that are interim breakages.
> > 
> > Any recommendations, any ideas?
> 
> A role out of all packages by tiers should work. E.g. first shipping all
> tier 1 packages. That should not break any existing package (ABI
> compatibility and things like that) and should be possible to do without an
> all or nothing. Afterwards you could role out tier 2 packages - those
> should also be possible to upgrade without an all or nothing.
[…]

Thank you. I forwarded your detailed answer accordingly.

Thanks,
-- 
Martin