ways not to help Debian release

I'm blogging about this because I'm very annoyed about it, and also because I think it points to a common set of mistakes Debian developers make.

Recently hotplug version -17 was uploaded to unstable. This version of hotplug made some changes that, apparently, break firmware loading when it's used with the stock Debian 2.6.8 kernels and udev.

At least 6 bugs were filed about this, oddly none of them were marked as Release Critical, so the release managers didn't really notice. The maintainer of hotplug and udev reassigned the bugs to the kernel, pinged the kernel team to fix their kernel, and then sat back and let hotplug -17 get into testing.

This is exactly the kind of thing that our politic DPL candidates this year are calling a "communications problem". Personally, I'd be considerably less polite in characterising this fuckup.

Please consider the overall effect of changes in your packages, especially packages which are part of standard Debian installations. Please look at the bugs you receive, and if they are actually release critical, fix their priorities. Please be on the lookout for situations where lack of action will result in release-delaying situations, and inform the release team of these problems in advance. Please, look at the big picture; your involvement with the Debian project should not stop at the borders of the packages you maintain.