Request to allow an incompatible upgrade

Stephen John Smoogen smooge at gmail.com
Wed Aug 15 21:53:32 UTC 2012


On 15 August 2012 15:31, BJ Dierkes <derks at bjdierkes.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 15, 2012 at 4:22 PM, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
>> On 15 August 2012 15:13, BJ Dierkes <derks at bjdierkes.com (mailto:derks at bjdierkes.com)> wrote:
>> > I am the maintainer, as well as the upstream developer of 'python-cement', a CLI Application Framework for Python [1]. Current version of python-cement in EPEL 5/6 is 0.8.18, however I recently released version 2.0.0 upstream which is the next/current stable version. The 0.8.x/1.0.x branch is dead upstream and no longer maintained, and for that reason I would like to request the ability to break compatibility and upgrade EPEL to the latest stable and supported version of Cement.
>> >
>> > This is a completely incompatible upgrade. Applications written on top of Cement 0.8.x would need significant changes (or a full rewrite of all the CLI pieces) to work with Cement 2.0.x. That said, there are no packages in EPEL that Requires: python-cement. Presumably there are users that are using python-cement for non-EPEL software however that is obviously not possible to know whether it is a significant number or not. Based on feedback, I don't think many people are using Cement 0.8.x but I really couldn't say officially.
>> >
>> > Currently there are no known bugs or security issues with python-cement in EPEL as it stands, therefore it is not eligible for an 'incompatible upgrade'. That said, based on usage and its upstream status… I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.
>>
>> 1) Would it be possible to make a package called python-cement2 which
>> would track this chain and then you could dead package the old one if
>> no one wants to maintain that tree?
>>
> I could do that, but it would mean one of two things right?
>
> a) python-cement2 Conflicts with python-cement

We usually go for this unless the module can be dual installed.

> b) python-cement2 patches the source so the module is 'cement2' (no good)
>
>
> Using the conflicts model, I would probably rather add it to the IUS Community Project [2] which does that explicitly for all packages, and in EPEL its kind of a hack.

If it is a hack in EPEL, how can we do this better?

> References:
>
> [2] http://iuscommunity.org
>
> ---
> derks
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Stephen J Smoogen.
"Don't derail a useful feature for the 99% because you're not in it."
Linus Torvalds
"Years ago my mother used to say to me,... Elwood, you must be oh
so smart or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I
recommend pleasant. You may quote me."  —James Stewart as Elwood P. Dowd




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