Fedora Extras vs. CLOSED RAWHIDE

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Wed, 2004-08-04 at 15:39, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
> On Wed, 04 Aug 2004 12:23:29 +0200, Ralf Corsepius <rc040203 at freenet.de> wrote:
> > As I already tried to outline, I can image several technical approaches:
> > 
> > 1) In exceptional/special cases, Fedora.us/FE should be permitted to
> > replace packages from FC if they break other FE packages or are unusable
> > in general.
> 
> I'm confused... if a package is already in FE how can a lack of an FC
> update break it?
I should have formulated more carefully.

There exist packages in Fedora.US/FE, which can be build for FC2, but
fail to build for FC1, because building these packages for FC1 trigger
"known bugs" in FC1, which RH has fixed  some time between FC1 and FC2,
but did not consider important enough to justify releasing a package
update. 

> Any package published in FE should be building against the active FC
> release(s) to even get published.  So I'm trying real hard to see how
> a lack of an update in FC is going to break already published FE
> packages.

The problem is: RH/FC not having fixed "known bugs" prevents
Fedora.US/FE from publishing packages for FC1.

What might confuse you is one case (gsview), where Fedora.US/FE already
had released a (broken) package for FC1, which now has to be withdrawn
because it can't be properly rebuild for FC1.

> Now if you want to talk fixing an FC package to make it easier to get
> a new FE package published...

I am talking about fixing an FC package to make it possible at all to
get a new FE package for FC < FC(CURRENT) published.

> > 2) RH/FC commits their packagers to listen to FE's package update
> > demands and to benevolently consider to release bug-fix updates once
> > such a demand pops up.
> 
> And what happens when FE package1 demands an FC update.. and that FC
> update breaks the hacks in FE package2, package3 and packagee5? Do we
> have the different FE package mantainers duke it out? This issue will
> always be grey. 
Right, this situation can't completely excluded, but if developers don't
work too careless, the risk is pretty small.

> Certainly a if an FE package needs new update to fix a
> security issue, working that out would be important.
> But anything else, is grey. I for one would be not so happy to see
> 60megs of updates to download on my desktop system just for
> buildrequires bugfixes.
You don't develop on packages for FC1, I presume?

Most cases I am referring to, are cases developers  encounter if their
work is based on one the affected packages.

> > 3) Don't change anything. In this case, FE should not release packages
> > that trip bugs which can not be worked around without very little
> > effort.
> 
> I'm totally fine with this.

I am not - It prevents Fedora.US/FE from releasing packages, while other
3rd parties are able to ship them (They replace the RH supplied FC1
packages).

IMO, this substantially weakens Fedora.US/FE and therefore causes damage
the Fedora Project as a whole in longer terms.

Ralf