Older packages are removed when newer versions FTBFS

[Dennis Kaarsemaker]

When I look at https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/ffmpeg2theora/

I see an new version being published, but that version FTBFS. The old version is removed though - leaving no installable version in the repositories.

[Christian Reis (kiko)]

Celso says this is in fact a bug in the publisher; the source should not be removed until a newer version of the source is available that builds on all architectures.

[Christian Reis (kiko)]

But actually, that package is an odd case, because we /never/ had a version that built in the archive (note that the version Published has the exact same version as the previous one). I think this bug is actually related to the fact that we display two entries in the Releases in Ubuntu portlet at https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/dapper/+source/ffmpeg2theora.

[Max Bowsher (maxb)]

This publisher bug can leave the Ubuntu archive distributing binaries without the corresponding sources, which is, uh, *bad* from an Open Source licence perspective! :-)

For example, see http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/libp/libpicocontainer-java/

[Celso Providelo (cprov)]

Max,

https://edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libpicocontainer-java/2.1-1 suggests that the source should be present in the archive. I will investigate in which circumstances it was removed.

[Ryan Oram (infinityos)]

Copied from bug 606075:

A good example of this problem is the "vala" package on vala-team/ppa.

http://ppa.launchpad.net/vala-team/ppa/ubuntu/pool/main/v/vala/

The sources for vala_0.9.1-1~llvala1 AND vala_0.9.2-2~llvala1 are available in the apt repo. However, only the binaries for vala_0.9.1-1~llvala are available.

https://launchpad.net/~vala-team/+archive/ppa

However, on Launchpad, only vala_0.9.2-2~llvala1 is listed, indicating a failed build. This is misleading as both the sources and the binaries for vala_0.9.1-1~llvala1 are available via apt, and it is vala_0.9.1-1~llvala1 that will installed when the vala package is installed using apt-get.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

This is no longer a problem for Ubuntu due to the use of proposed-migration, but is probably still a problem for PPAs unless they go to some effort to build everything in a staging PPA.