I am looking through the backlog
of open patch submissions to see if any are actionable on my
end. One such patch is issue
55728 which updates python-mock. Based on the output of `guix
refresh --list-dependent python-mock | wc`, this will impact more
than 2000 packages. While this submission is very old, neither the
master nor python-team branches have updated this package yet. In section
22.8.2 "Managing Patches and Branches", there is a
recommendation that changes which effect more than 300 dependents
are added to a different branch for testing.
These dependents presumably still work, as there are not 2000 build
failures or a flood of related bug reports. So I think it would make
sense to first ask the submitter for their motivation for sending
the patch (for example, it might be a prerequisite for a package
they want to add and they did not send it as a series for some
reason). Depending on their response it might make sense to do
something other than apply the update as given (for example, by
providing both versions of the package so that a new package can be
added without impacting existing branches). But there also might be
some reason why it makes sense to apply the update everywhere (for
example, if significant optimizations in the update reduces build
times for all of the dependent packages).
So my main question is whether or not people agree that it makes
sense to ask the submitter for more information and take no other
action at this time. And as a secondary question, if it does make
sense to update the package everywhere is there anything actionable
on my end?