Fedora Extras vs. CLOSED RAWHIDE

[Jeff Spaleta]

On Thu, 05 Aug 2004 04:57:08 +0200, Ralf Corsepius <rc040203 at freenet.de> wrote:
> The problem is: RH/FC not having fixed "known bugs" prevents
> Fedora.US/FE from publishing packages for FC1.

I'm personally not all that thrilled at having FE packagers target
publishing any new packages in current or old FC releases. I think new
FE publishing should target FC development and FE 'releases' should
freeze out on the same timescales as FC instead of obsessing over
trying to continue to base work on an FC release that is 1 or 2 month
away from being officially EOLd. The more FE packages that get
introduced against the development tree... the less post-release
problems with Core we will have with FE long term.  Continuing to add
NEW extras against an FC release is how we break upgrade paths when
Core consumes new functionality in development that was in the past in
extras.

If Core+Extras ends up looking like a rolling release like i use to
see with ximian desktop, I'm going to puke my guts out. I hate the
rolling release model with rpm packages. You sneak in a packaging fix
thats meant to fix something else, don't do enough QA and every user
ends up having to try to do a package rollbacks for several packages.
No thanks. I'll chew my own arm off first.
   
> 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.

And i think this has to be case by case...its grey. Im going to be
wicked pissed, if I as a user have to download megs of updates just to
fix a packaging error that could have been worked around in the new FE
package by the packagers.

> Right, this situation can't completely excluded, but if developers don't
> work too careless, the risk is pretty small.

Thats pure optimizism on your part. If people were happy and shiny and
communicated well we wouldn't have 90% of the griping we have on this
list, and certaintly not this thread. Waving a magic policy wand
deeming that people will change in this regard is extremely wishful
thinking.

> You don't develop on packages for FC1, I presume?

FC1 is at best a month away from EOL (though im none too happy that
there hasnt been an actual FIRM date about FC1 EOL but ill save that
for another debate) if anyone is still considering building new
packages against FC1 at this point, its seems a foolhardy goal.
 
> 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).

3rd party packagers are NOT going away. This is NOT a competition with
what 3rd party packagers can and can not do. The issues with non-free
and non-US packages that Fedora refuses to ship is a big enough space
to keep 3rd party packagers in business as a popular place for users
to get things. Fedora can't compete with 3rd parties when it comes to
instant user gratification. We shouldn't pretend that it can.  What we
are talking about here, corner cases invovling packaging bugs is not
going to make or break the issue of 3rd party repos.  I am much more
concerned about long term issues associated with a growing fedora
development model so that community developers are focused on looking
ahead instead of looking backwards.
 
> IMO, this substantially weakens Fedora.US/FE and therefore causes damage
> the Fedora Project as a whole in longer terms.

I think 6 month EOL's for Core make any argument about long term
projhect damage a little thin. Legacy with its current manpower and
infrastructure can't handle legacy issues with FE packages. Michael
has already said that there is reluctance currently for fedora.us
package maintainers to continue to support packages in a legacy
situations. Fedora Core's timescale are extremely aggressive and push
people to move to the next release very quickly. I think the
development model as a whole does better long term, if new Fedora
Extras development focuses continually on the Core development tree,
instead of dragging attention backwards to suppliment Core releases
that have already been frozen out.  If new packages can be built
painlessly for Core releases that are still active, great. If not,I
think Fedora Alternatives as defined in the terminology page fills the
corner cases you are concerned about in situations where Core
developers don't want to push an update.


-jef