Re: solution for those depending on PEAR packages with

Scott Mattocks wrote:

Hi Greg, Greg Beaver wrote:

Lukas and others have mentioned a problem that applications have when depending on a PEAR package: if a critical bug is found, and the maintainer of the PEAR package is slow to release a new version, then it is very difficult to get a patched version of the package onto client's computers unless you patch it by hand, or instruct them to do the awkward:

Should you really implement a work around for something that isn't supposed to happen? Than manual says: "The contributor ("you") must be willing to provide support for the package and must be willing to release future versions that at the very least fix bugs." Now I know that it isn't always possible to fix bugs the next day, but in theory at least, a package will be patched and released as soon as humanly possible. It doesn't make much sense to me to say, "PEAR code is constantly maintained and of high quality, but just in case you can get around it by..." Also, if a PEAR developer isn't reachable, the user can submit the patch and have the QA team take care of it. Isn't that one of their responsibilities?

The QA team will wait for up to 6 months to make sure a package is unmaintained before acting. There have been cases of packages with fixes taking 2 years to release - I think this is necessary. Greg