Comment # 7
on bug 8190
from Evan Huus
(In reply to comment #5)
> At this point, my inclination is to drop the Debian, RPM, and SVR4 packaging
> stuff, supply what cross-platform files would be useful to put into those
> packages (e.g., wireshark.desktop), and leave it up to the packagers to do
> whatever's necessary for their packaging systems.
I agree.
(In reply to comment #6)
> An Ubuntu PPA:
>
> https://help.launchpad.net/Packaging/PPA
>
> sounds as if it's Ubuntu's way of letting developers "get ahead of the
> packagers", as a way of letting the developer provide more up-to-date
> packages. I get the impression that doing so for Linux distributions is a
> pain, or is not recommended, in the general case, and that a PPA makes that
> work or, at least, suck less, so it *might* make sense for us to do that.
As is often the case, common practice has diverged somewhat from theory :)
Ubuntu's requirements for landing a package update in a stable release are very
strict (though not unusual for an enterprise-targeted system) [1]. Because of
this, released versions frequently and quickly end up with out-of-date versions
of common desktop software. A case in point, the lastest LTS release of Ubuntu
is still packaging Wireshark 1.6.7 because nobody has gone through the (fairly
significant) effort of applying for a stable update to 1.6.12.
This has led to the situation where many software projects run a PPA containing
the latest upstream stable versions. Regular (non-enterprise) users who are
more interested in the latest upstream version than in regression risks can
easily add the PPA. See, for example, this official Inkscape PPA [2].
Ideally, I think, we would apply for a Micro-Release Exception [3] which would
significantly streamline the process for stable release updates, but I doubt we
have a sufficient level of regression testing (especially in our UI components)
to be accepted, and there would still be some level of work involved.
[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates
[2] https://launchpad.net/~inkscape.dev/+archive/stable
[3] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates/MicroReleaseExceptions
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