Delays in package processing

Jesse Keating jkeating at redhat.com
Fri Dec 21 14:01:35 UTC 2007


On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 14:48:13 +0100
Michael Schwendt <mschwendt.tmp0701.nospam at arcor.de> wrote:

> I don't want to make it more difficult for packagers to publish
> updates -- quality updates, well-tested packages which include
> accumulated bug-fixes. But, please, don't engage in those mad upgrade
> races with upstream projects and move away from the gold release of
> the distribution just to ship new stuff. It's like a never-ending
> loop in the development/testing cycle. An unstoppable stream of new
> packages which you need to evaluate and test against the packages
> which you use and build your own packages with.


I agree with this a lot.  We put a lot of effort into making a release
work well, and we often get rave reviews for the release in the first
few weeks.  We also put a ton of effort into documentation and such.
However after the first few weeks or the first month, the massive pile
of not just bugfix updates, but new versions, major release changes,
etc.. make what you install and then update look nothing like that
initial release.  Suddenly our documentation is no longer correct, our
stability is gone, our great integration is gone, and we start to look
like a very sloppy distribution once again, or rawhide.

We have stable releases for a reason, so that they can remain stable
for the (short) period of time they are active.  We have a development
stream for the purposes of developing new releases and preparing for
that next stable release.

I had hoped that common sense would prevail across our maintainers and
that stable releases would be treated as such, stable releases not to
be cheapened with lots of unnecessary updates just so that "users can
get the latest stuff!".  Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be what's
happening.  I don't want to introduce draconian policies and
procedures to enforce this, mostly because there just isn't enough time
in the day to supervise all the potential updates for whether they
should go out or not.

So I ask you, Fedora Community, how do we as a community ensure that
our stable releases stay just that, stable?

-- 
Jesse Keating
Fedora -- All my bits are free, are yours?
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