Hi

I couldn't find a good reference of what a 'release critical' bug means,
would it be reasonable to include this in the policy manual?

Or is that a more relaxed term that is continously re-defined in
https://release.debian.org/testing/rc_policy.txt ?

/Simon

The wording suggests that it's a term external to the Policy.

If this part causes confusion it could be moved to a footnote I guess?

This document defines what is considered release critical, not what being
release critical means.

Unless I'm confused and you are looking for something else.

Andrey Rakhmatullin <wrar@debian.org> writes:

I've always been uncertain if the definition of a 'release critical bug'
should be considered:

1) Any bug with severity critical, grave, or serious.

2) A bug that fulfills the ever-moving definition in
https://release.debian.org/testing/rc_policy.txt

3) Something else.

Is there a simple clear definition?

Defining it as 1) above would solve my concern and is simple, but I'm
honestly not certain this is actually how everyone interprete the term.

A footnote is fine for me.

Or some acknowledging that there is no consensus that this is worthy of
adding an definition to Debian Policy for, and that the term is
something that is only relevant in a narrow part of Debian (i.e., for
the release process).  Still, I find the term 'release critical bug' or
RC-bug is often used generally about any package, which should warrant a
better definition.

That is my interpretation too -- but then a definition is lacking.  A
random text file on a random *.debian.org host also isn't the best place
to document things on.

/Simon

This question may need additional context.

Usually when people talk about RC bugs they mean a specific distinction
between RC and non-RC bugs in various Release Team related tools (mostly
migration and autoremoval ones). And for that the severity is used, per
your option 1 below.

A bug that fulfills this definition but has a severity lower than serious
is said to have a wrong severity and that needs to be adjusted. After that
the distinction no longer exists. Or, one may say "installing this package
makes firefox crash on start which is RC" eve when there is no bug report
in the BTS at all, yet, with the understanding that such a bug report
should be created and have a severity serious or grave.

(again, it's always possible I'm misunderstanding the confusion)

Simon Josefsson [12/Aug  1:17pm +02] wrote:

Well, Policy requirements define what's release critical in general, and
release team decisions decide what's release critical for a given
upcoming stable release.  When the RT mark a bug as, e.g.,
'forky-ignore' without downgrading its severity, that means it's release
critical in general but not release critical for that release.

Possibly we could have a footnote with that information.

Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> writes:

Where/How?  Adding the term 'release critical' to where the concept is
defined in Policy is what the bug report is about.

There is no match for the keyword 'release critical' in the git
repository, and I can't find it using the search entry here either:

https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/search.html?q=release+critical

My patch adds the term 'release critical' to the first hit above, where
I think the concept is defined but without using the term 'release
critical'.

If you prefer a footnote over my earlier patch, how about the attached
version?

Of course, as illustrated by the discussion with Andrey, I may be
misunderstanding what the actual definition of 'release critical' is, or
how the term is supposed to be used.  My request is merely that the term
is defined somewhere, if it actually has any definition that can be
written down.  It is fine to dismiss this, but maybe discussion helps.

/Simon

Simon Josefsson [16/Aug  1:30pm +02] wrote:

You quoted the text where Policy requirements are defined.  Basically,
'must' and 'should'.

I think that we ought to make reference to the release team like I
suggested.

Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> writes:

The text is:

   The terms must and must not, and the adjectives required and
   prohibited, denote strong requirements. Packages that do not conform
   to these requirements will generally not be considered acceptable for
   the Debian distribution. These statements correspond to the critical,
   grave, and serious bug severities (normally serious). They are
   collectively called Policy requirements.

It is the third sentence:

   These statements correspond to the critical, grave, and serious bug
   severities (normally serious)

that I believe carry a simple definition of 'release critical'.

How about:

   A 'release critical' bug is a bug with severity critical, grave, and
   serious.  The release team publish the criteria for these severity
   levels at https://release.debian.org/testing/rc_policy.txt

Would that make more sense?  I'm not sure where this should go.

/Simon

Simon Josefsson [16/Aug  1:51pm +02] wrote:

How about we just append a parenthetical (the release-critical severities)?

Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> writes:

Something like this?  Adding one paranthetical after another looks a bit
weird, so I'm not sure what you meant.

/Simon

Simon Josefsson [17/Aug  3:12pm +02] wrote:

I think your patch is incomplete.