[arch-general] A few out of date packages

[Levente Polyak]

On 2/12/20 12:58 AM, Genes Lists via arch-general wrote:
> I've selected a few to highlight based on age and my own view of
> importance (no claim its a good view).
> 
> So, here's a few that might benefit from an update:
>                                                    Cal Pkg
> Name        Vers     Updt   Flag   CVers   Date    Age Age Pkger
> ----------- -------- ------ ------ ------- ------ ---- --- -----
> thunderbird 68.4.2   200126 200211 68.5.0  200210  16  15 LP
> bash        5.0.011  191118 200208 5.0.016 200207  85  81 EF
> fail2ban    0.10.5   200112 200112 0.11.1  200111  30  -1 FY
> ipset       7.4      191202 200109 7.5     200109  71  38 SL
> samba       4.10.10  191114 191101 4.11.6  200128  89  75 TP
> smbclient   4.10.10  191114 191101 4.11.6  200128  89  75 TP
> ebtables    2.0.10_4 181113 191203 2.0.11  190212 455 384 EF
> biber       1:2.13   191101 191202 2.14    191201 102  30 RO
> diffstat    1.62     190106 191130 1.63    191129 401 327 AW
> libelf      0.177    191118 191128 0.178   191126  85   8 EF
> elfutils    0.177    191118 191128 0.178   191126  85   8 EF
> refind-efi  0.11.3   180723 181119 0.11.4  191112 568 112 TP [1]
> 
> [1] 0.11.5 looks to be coming out soon
> 
>   Cal Age = days since last update
>   Pkg Age = days between current and arch release
>   Cvers = Current version
> 

Hi gene,

thanks for taking time and trying to improve something in our distro,
however I believe your numbers are, lets say: suboptimal

You are listing a cal age, which just doesn't say anything as it doesn't
matter how long ago the last update was if the upstream release cycle is
like that.

On top you list Pkg Age as the delta between the latest upstream release
and the last packaging date of the current version in the repos. This
metric again says nothing important.

You are collecting the wrong metrics, what is interesting is "today
minus upstream release date" to get the delta how long a package version
in the repo is not the latest available one. Maybe a second row for how
many days passed since it has been flagged, but the above age is just
nothing useful to take into account.

Actually what does thunderbird even do on this list? I guess because its
"Age" is 15? Which exactly proves my point above:
Version 68.5.0, first offered to channel users on February 11, 2020
which was exactly 1 day ago.

On top this data set is inconsistent, thunderbird was released 200211
and not as listed 200210 plus refind-efi was not released 191112 but
181112 and I didn't even check any other numbers besides those two.

cheers,
Levente

https://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.11.4/
https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/68.5.0/releasenotes/

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