[maemo-developers] extras: autobuilders

[From: Mike Lococo]

>> 8) Although I don't think anyone is suggesting that the autobuilder should be 
>> an autotester, it could at least install the generated packages into an 
>> environment that also has everything else already installed.
> 
> What kind of conflicts are possible, though?  One that I can think of
> is:
> 
> - library version 1.1 is built, and published to the repository
> 
> - application1 is built, with Depends: library = 1.1; build is
>   successful, application1 is published, and the test-install passes
> 
> - application2 needs library >= 1.2, so library 1.2 is uploaded and
>   built; does the system somehow know, at this point, that
>   application1 is now broken?
> 
> Is this a valid problem, and/or are there other kinds of conflict?

This is a problem that can/should be fixed, and should be discovered by 
the autobuilder.

If application1 has "Depends: library = 1.1;" because an inexperienced 
package builder didn't know they should be using >=, that bug should be 
fixed.  If library genuinely changed something in the 1.1 to 1.2 upgrade 
that breaks apps, and some apps need 1.1 while others need 1.2, there 
should be two packaged versions of library that don't conflict 
(lib-compat-1.1 and lib-1.2).

Basically, if there are conflicts in the repo they're bad and the 
autobuilder should squeal about them.

Thanks,
Mike Lococo