Re: doesn't this work?

[Jan Claeys <lists janc be>]

Op zondag 20-01-2008 om 17:40 uur [tijdzone +0100], schreef Murray
Cumming:
> On Sun, 2008-01-20 at 16:09 +0100, Jan Claeys wrote:
> > Op vrijdag 18-01-2008 om 23:40 uur [tijdzone +0100], schreef Murray
> > Cumming:
> > > This bug was fixed, but Ubuntu don't update their packages. It's very
> > > annoying. We (Openismus) are working on some alternative packages for
> > > Ubuntu 7.10.
> >
> > The chance for updated packages is currently (almost) zero as there is
> > no bug report on launchpad (as far as I can see?).
>
> There are (were) plenty of bugs, probably now closed because the updated
> version is in unstable Ubuntu (Hardy Heron). But Ubuntu just don't do
> bug-fix releases of packages in stable releases unless they are security
> fixes.

Ubuntu has 2 repositories for updates that aren't security fixes:
      * gutsy-updates = important updates (e.g. for bugs that make an
        application useless or not very useful) that don't break
        dependencies for other applications
      * gutsy-backports = backported packages from the next distro
        release that don't break dependencies

For example, OOo 2.3 final was released through gutsy-updates, and a lot
of other packages too:
<http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/gutsy-updates/main/source/Sources.gz>

If you have a patch that only fixes bugs (doesn't add new features), and
these bugs seriously hampers glom's usage, it should be possible to get
an update released.  Otherwise, a backport of the hardy package to
gutsy-backports could be useful.

Of course, if you also need updates to gtkmm or something like that, it
would be much more difficult, as other packages also use that.


NB: 'glom' is in universe, so you should convince one of the MOTU to do
the update.  Offering a patch based on the Ubuntu package might help
(minimising the effort required by the developer).  (And if there is a
bug explaining the issues, I can try to point MOTU developers to it...)


-- 
Jan Claeys