[csw-maintainers] Garbage collection in allpkgs

[Maciej (Matchek) Bliziński]

2012/12/31 Dagobert Michelsen <dam at opencsw.org>:
> Hi Peter,
>
> Am 30.12.2012 um 20:21 schrieb Peter FELECAN <pfelecan at opencsw.org>:
>> "Maciej (Matchek) Bliziński" <maciej at opencsw.org> writes:
>>> The 'allpkgs' directory does contain a history of packages, but it
>>> doesn't contain all transient (and often broken) 19 different versions
>>> of MySQL that happened to be in unstable for 2 days, but only the 3 or
>>> 4 versions that are actually used somewhere in our catalogs. I thought
>>> that was good enough. If you disagree, I will put the 24GB of junk
>>> back in allpkgs; but I remain unconvinced that they are actually
>>> useful.
>>
>> Isn't the set allpkgs the union of all the named releases, e.g. dublin,
>> kiel, &c. ?
>
> No, allpkgs is the collection of all packages ever released to any
> of the catalogs (with the exception of experimental).

'unstable' is also one of the named catalogs. I think we could change
that at some point for clarity, but for now 'unstable' is a named
release, which gets never promoted.

>> If that is true we must offer only that. To offer all the
>> instances of our packages that were produced over the time can be a
>> waste of resources, material and spiritual, i.e. is very difficult for
>> someone to create a coherent set of that even if he's perusing the
>> source control system's history of the recipes. Consequently, I support
>> Maciej proposition.
>
> It is meant as a reference for reproducing issues. Also I compare
> old versions of a package with a recent one from time to time if
> I think we have a regression.

This is an argument for keeping package files around for some time,
where the time could be for instance half a year.

Maciej