Re: Zsh on Debian is beginning to rot

[Ray Andrews <rayandrews@eastlink.ca>]

On 09/09/12 05:16 PM, Axel Beckert wrote:
> Hi Mark,
>
> On Sun, Sep 09, 2012 at 08:38:08PM +0200, Mark van Dijk wrote:
>>> Squeeze is about 1.5 years old, Squeeze's feature freeze was in the
>>> beginning of August 2010 and zsh 4.3.10 was the uptodate zsh
>>> developement (!) release back then.
>> Yeah, so it's 2 years old and it did have some minor fixes since then.
>> The word 'rot' was chosen poorly sorry about that, if I pissed you
>> off too much I apologise.
> Ah, civility triumphs.
>
>
>
> Gentlemen, this brings up a meta question of mine that I can't find the
> answer too anywhere.  It's off topic, but since we have a genuine Debian
>   packager at hand, maybe he can answer it, or perhaps point me to some
> doc that does explain it.
>
>
>
> Why are Debian packages often so far behind?--vs, say, Arch, who often
> have packages out the day after they are released from upstream?  This
> is not a bitchy comment, it is an honest question--I'm sure there is a
> very good reason, I'd just like to know what it is.  What is involved in
>   making a package?  I'd have thought that when someone releases
> something, it would take five minutes to just 'wrap it up' into the
> package format and that would be that.  When I download something as SRC
>   and build it, it often seems 'that simple', yet packaging things seems
> to be quite a chore and to take years.
>
>
>
> Take Xfce.  I'd like to try 4.10.  Now, I know I can build it from SRC,
> but why is it that (at least last time I checked) it is not available in
>   Testing?  Arch had a package of it out, literally a couple of days
> after it was released.  What is it that Debian packagers do that takes
> so long?  I get the feeling that somehow software packages need to be
> customized and tweaked for a year or two before they can be included.
> Why?  Slackware makes it a point of pride that they don't customize or
> tweak stuff at all, and yet, they too seem to take their time getting
> packages together, and they release a monolithic distro like Debian as
> if (so it might seem) all the parts have to be carefully checked out and
>   mated to all the other parts to avoid disaster.  OTOH, Arch seems to
> feel that you can put things together any way you want and it should all
>   work like lego.  It should all work like lego.
>
>
>
> Or take the current thing, Debian/zsh.  It sounds like Axel has put his
> heart and soul into Debian/zsh, but what on Earth does that involve?
> I'd have thought that zsh is zsh is zsh regardless of the distro.  If
> anyone can help me to get a ground level understanding of this whole
> subject I'd be very obliged.