rawhide report: 20040109 changes

[Michael K. Johnson]

On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 02:45:09PM +0100, Xose Vazquez Perez wrote:
> just a question. Are the RHEL changes included in rawhide packages
> or are they going to be sent to upstream ?

The answer is context-dependent.  Because RHEL doesn't update
package versions, patches may not even apply to mainstream; it
is not that unusual that fixes to RHEL packages are backports
or re-implementations of fixes that are in upstream packages.

It's official Red Hat policy that patches should be sent
upstream if they are appropriate to be sent upstream.  We
sometimes fail (sometimes we want to test a patch before
sending it and then it falls off the radar, sometimes we
don't realize that upstream would want a patch, etc.)
Customization patches often just aren't appropriate for
upstream, so those tend to live forever in RPMs.  We need
a lot fewer of those than we used to, though.

Syncing to rawhide on the way upstream is generally going to
be developer's discretion based on factors like what testing
they are looking for when, upstream schedules, etc.

michaelkjohnson

 "He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book."
 Linux Application Development                     -- Ben Franklin
 http://people.redhat.com/johnsonm/lad/