Testing test releases: do not update

[Mike A. Harris]

On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, Robert P. J. Day wrote:

>> Its all part of the process to the same product, not a separate product
>> or any such thing.  Rawhide is just a way for you to get the VERY latest
>> in what the developers are working with for the next release version.
>
>hang on a sec, there was one point i was trying to clarify in my previous
>post.  (i'm not trying to be difficult; i am merely succeeding.)
>
>i understand now that, by definition, rawhide represents the current state
>of the test, and that *everything* in rawhide is theoretically going to be
>included in the next release.  so far, so good.
>
>but is there any way now that the fedora folks can offer up some package 
>or newer release of a package that they'd like to offer for testing, but 
>is simply too new/untested to be included even in rawhide?

Sure.  Individual developers can opt to do that (or not do that) 
on a package by package basis at their own leisure.  I put my 
packages up on people.redhat.com in an ftp and yum accessible 
fashion.


>in short, is there any mechanism/channel to provide packages that the
>fedora folks would like to offer for testing, but are too far ahead of the
>curve, even by rawhide's standards?  or is it the position that, if it
>doesn't belong in rawhide, we're not going to talk about it.  i have no
>problem with that, i just wanted to make sure i understood.

Yes, but only as unofficial unsupported packages.  Our efforts 
are spent on actually developing and maintaining what _will_ be 
used in the next OS release, rather than /what would be nice to 
have because it is newer and some people out there might like it/ 
per se.  Individual developers can of course update packages 
however they like and provide them on people.redhat.com, or in 
fedora.us or somewhere else.  But that really isn't part of 
developing Fedora Core 2.  It's more fun stuff for people who 
want something newer for given specific packages.  We're more 
concerned about what we actually will be shipping.


-- 
Mike A. Harris     ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
OS Systems Engineer - XFree86 maintainer - Red Hat