<literal>testing</literal> directly. Rather, they will be removed
automatically after the package has been removed from
<literal>unstable</literal> and no package in
-<literal>testing</literal> depends on it.
+<literal>testing</literal> depends on it. (Removals from
+<literal>testing</literal> are possible though by filing a removal bug report
+against the <systemitem role="package">&release-debian-org;</systemitem>
+pseudo-package. See the section <xref linkend="removals"/>.)
</para>
<para>
There is one exception when an explicit removal request is not necessary: If a
<listitem>
<para>
If the maintainer is usually active and responsive, have you tried to contact
-him? In general it should be considered preferable that a maintainer takes care
-of an issue himself and that he is given the chance to review and correct your
-patch, because he can be expected to be more aware of potential issues which an
-NMUer might miss. It is often a better use of everyone's time if the maintainer
-is given an opportunity to upload a fix on their own.
+them? In general it should be considered preferable that maintainers take care
+of an issue themselves and that they are given the chance to review and
+correct your patch, because they can be expected to be more aware of potential
+issues which an NMUer might miss. It is often a better use of everyone's time
+if the maintainer is given an opportunity to upload a fix on their own.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
same time. For instance, instead of telling the maintainer that you will
upload the updated
package in 7 days, you should upload the package to
-<literal>DELAYED/7</literal> and tell the maintainer that he has 7 days to
+<literal>DELAYED/7</literal> and tell the maintainer that they have 7 days to
react. During this time, the maintainer can ask you to delay the upload some
more, or cancel your upload.
</para>
The <literal>DELAYED</literal> queue should not be used to put additional
pressure on the maintainer. In particular, it's important that you are
available to cancel or delay the upload before the delay expires since the
-maintainer cannot cancel the upload himself.
+maintainer cannot cancel the upload themselves.
</para>
<para>
If you make an NMU to <literal>DELAYED</literal> and the maintainer updates
-his package before the delay expires, your upload will be rejected because a
+the package before the delay expires, your upload will be rejected because a
newer version is already available in the archive.
Ideally, the maintainer will take care to include your proposed changes (or
at least a solution for the problems they address) in that upload.
The package must have been available in <literal>unstable</literal> for 2, 5
or 10 days, depending on the urgency (high, medium or low). Please note that
the urgency is sticky, meaning that the highest urgency uploaded since the
-previous <literal>testing</literal> transition is taken into account. Those
-delays may be doubled during a freeze, or <literal>testing</literal>
-transitions may be switched off altogether;
+previous <literal>testing</literal> transition is taken into account;
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
The packages on which it depends must either be available in
<literal>testing</literal> or they must be accepted into
<literal>testing</literal> at the same time (and they will be if they fulfill
-all the necessary criteria).
+all the necessary criteria);
+</para>
+</listitem>
+<listitem>
+<para>
+The phase of the project. I.e. automatic transitions are turned off during
+the <emphasis>freeze</emphasis> of the <literal>testing</literal> distribution.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
The packages are looked at to determine whether they are valid candidates.
This gives the update excuses. The most common reasons why a package is not
considered are too young, RC-bugginess, and out of date on some arches. For
-this part of britney, the release managers have hammers of various sizes to
-force britney to consider a package. (Also, the base freeze is coded in that
-part of britney.) (There is a similar thing for binary-only updates, but this
-is not described here. If you're interested in that, please peruse the code.)
+this part of britney, the release managers have hammers of various sizes,
+called hints (see below), to force britney to consider a package.
</para>
<para>
Now, the more complex part happens: Britney tries to update <literal>testing</literal>
</para>
<para>
The hints are available via <ulink
-url="http://&ftp-master-host;/testing/hints/"></ulink>.
+url="http://&ftp-master-host;/testing/hints/"></ulink>, where you can find
+the
+<ulink url="http://&ftp-master-host;/testing/hints/README">description</ulink>
+as well. With the hints, the Debian Release team can block or unblock
+packages, ease or force packages into <literal>testing</literal>, remove
+packages from <literal>testing</literal>, approve uploads to
+<link linkend="t-p-u">testing-proposed-updates</link> or override the urgency.
</para>
</section>
~ianmdlvl / developers-reference.git / blobdiff