Please update to Mono 2.0

[Michael B. Trausch]

Mono 2.0 has been released. Please update to it for Intrepid as it would be worth having for this upcoming release.

For the changes and additional features, please see http://www.mono-project.com/Release_Notes_Mono_2.0

[Jo Shields (directhex)]

Sorry, but I can't support this.

Mono have a history for somewhat... unready... upstream releases, which require extensive patching and testing before they're ready. 1.9.1 in Intrepid already has 19 patches applied to it, and all of those would require re-testing and re-auditing for 2.0 packages.

So close to Intrepid's release, I really don't think it's realistic to put a MAJOR new upstream with a poor release quality history into the default install of a stable version.

The pkg-mono team is actively working on Mono 2.0 for Debian, and I think it would be foolish for Ubuntu to jump the gun with such a major, major new release before it's been adequately tested and staged by the active, cross-distro team at pkg-mono.

It'll definitely be in Jaunty though, and 2.0 packages for older releases will appear in third party locations (such as my PPA) once they're ready for human consumption.

[Ken Phillis Jr (kphillisjr)]

I somewhat agree that testing is important, however i wouldn't mind seeing it backported to intrepid when it is proven to be stable.

[Jo Shields (directhex)]

Mono is ineligible for official backporting, as it's considered a "major framework" and at too high a risk of regression. The same rules prevent official backports for things like Python or Ruby. It's also hard to convince the Powers That Be to allow ~5 updated source packages producing ~100 updated binary packages which might affect the behaviour of several apps in the default desktop to land in -backports.

I can understand the desire to get ahold of the latest release, and I can assure you it's being actively worked on in Debianland, but the absolute key matter is that the *apps* which use the Mono framework are stable and reliable and working, and there's simply too high a risk of regression in pulling the rug out from underneath them.

[Michael B. Trausch (mtrausch)]

On Mon, Oct 06, 2008 at 11:40:14PM -0000, directhex wrote:
> I can understand the desire to get ahold of the latest release, and I
> can assure you it's being actively worked on in Debianland, but the
> absolute key matter is that the *apps* which use the Mono framework are
> stable and reliable and working, and there's simply too high a risk of
> regression in pulling the rug out from underneath them.

I understand that. I just think that the increased compatibility with
MS APIs (and consequently MS software), the VB8 compiler, the full
debugger, WinForms enhancements, reduced memory usage, and the list of
fixed bugs from the release notes would be a good thing to have in the
next Ubuntu release.

I am sure that if it's not included, it'll be backported at least
unofficially sometime soon.

When you mentioned that they have a history of bad releases, what
precisely did you mean, just out of curiosity?

[Jo Shields (directhex)]

We apply a whopping 19 patches against Mono right now to make it usable. Whilst a couple are minor things like autoreconfing, most are for pretty major brokenness on important architectures (e.g. an arg checking bug preventing compilation of xsp on AMD64). Each of those needs to be re-audited.

In the words of one of the Mono core developers, "Debian WAS our QA team" - and we simply don't have enough time to do our job and make the Intrepid release. And frankly, given the sheer number of packages we're talking about and the late stage we're at, I wouldn't blame any core developer for a vomiting fit once they see a Feature Freeze Exception for something as huge, core, and breakable as Mono

[Jo Shields (directhex)]

Fixed in Jaunty