Greetings, Ubuntu Developers!
A few months ago, I started a discussion about the fact that the Bitcoin software is not suitable for inclusion in Ubuntu, where it is essentially frozen in time and unable to be updated. That discussion led to the packages' removal from trusty and blacklisting from Debian syncing going forward. Now, the question is on removal of the software, currently version 0.3.24, from Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin, since that version is almost entirely broken, and will most likely not successfully complete a sync with the network at all. Scott Howard prepared a dummy package, that replaces the binary with a notice of removal, and attached it to the bug that was opened on the issue, bug #1314616. At the time, I was told that the procedure was to prepare the package, subscribe the SRU team to the bug, find a sponsor to upload it to the proposed section for precise, and then once it was uploaded, the SRU team would discuss it and decide on it. Last week, I spoke to Stéphane Graber on IRC, requesting sponsorship. I was then told, "that's something which needs discussion with the sru team, not just a standard upload", and that "If someone was to upload that today, I'd reject it when it hits the queue because it doesn't meet our current SRU criteria, so if you don't want that to happen, this needs to be discussed prior to upload".
Then, a little more inquiring in IRC, and Colin Watson informed me that the best way to start this discussion would be to bring it up here. So, I'd like to request that the SRU Team discuss this, and ideally get it into the archives as quickly as is feasible, since we still occasionally get people in the Bitcoin channels complaining that they're having trouble, only to find out that they're using the broken version of the software that you are shipping by default. Some earlier discussion is linked from the bug mentioned above.
Thanks in advance,
Micha
