Debian Package Maintainer Steps Down, Complaining About 'Old Infrastructure'

guest · Mar 10, 2019

Debian Package Maintainer Steps Down, Complaining About 'Old Infrastructure'
March 10, 2019
https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19...eps-down-complaining-about-old-infrastructure

Today he released a 2,255-word essay explaining why he's "winding down" his involvement in Debian to a minimum, citing numerous complaints including Debian's complicated build stack, waits of up to seven hours before package uploads can be installed, leading to "asynchronous" feedback -- and Debian's lack of tooling for large changes.

There's also several complaints about old infrastructure -- for example, "I dread interacting with the Debian bug tracker. debbugs is a piece of software (from 1994) which is only used by Debian and the GNU project these days."
Stapelberg also complains that the "painful" experience of developing using Debian "leaves a lot to be desired," and adds that "It baffles me that in 2019, we still don't have a conveniently browsable threaded archive of mailing list discussions."

"My frustration level ultimately exceeded the threshold," Stapelberg writes in the essay, adding "I hope this post inspires someone, ideally a group of people, to improve the developer experience within Debian."
Click to expand...

fblais · Mar 11, 2019

Ouch!

mirimir · Mar 11, 2019

Funny. I saw this on HN, but didn't bother reading it. I just assumed "sad, another old guy retiring". So what, it's Debian that's the "old guy"

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