Update/install experience

Mike McGrath mmcgrath at redhat.com
Thu Dec 17 01:40:58 UTC 2009


On Wed, 16 Dec 2009, Paul Frields wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 4:14 PM, Mike McGrath <mmcgrath at redhat.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 16 Dec 2009, Josh Boyer wrote:
> >
> >> On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 10:50:59AM -0700, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
> >> >ok, so perhaps it's this planning that I am wondering about, and should
> >> >ask on the test list.
> >> >
> >> >So, not sure if this is just a rephrasing of this proposal, but:
> >> >
> >> >- All updates need to spend time in updates-testing unless they are
> >> >  security related.
> >>
> >> Sounds like exactly what EPEL does.  I think enforcement is manual
> >> there still, and that isn't going to scale to Fedora.  The change
> >> should be fairly minimal though.
> >>
> >
> > Dennis can speak to this better then I can but as I understand it several
> > people try to go around the policies and go straight to stable
> > immediately, even after it's been explained to them.  Bodhi itself doesn't
> > quite have that workflow built into it so I think at times dennis and the
> > packager have gotten into a "It's stable" "It's testing" "it's stable"
> > fight.
>
> I actually did this once myself, inadvertently, because I didn't
> understand the workflow (it was a new package). I guess technically it
> wasn't a fight but more like a tug of war you don't realize you're in
> at first. :-)  But I think the discussion is getting away from the
> topic a bit.
>

I agree but it does get to kind of a core of the problem, that's forming a
message about best practices around updates.  I think in many ways that
starts at the packager and providing a proper framework for updates (I'm
thinking a level above bodhi where bodhi is the implementation layer of
that framework), then providing proper incentive to follow that framework.

That last one is especially tricky because the more rules we have and the
more complex we are about updates, the less volunteers will be apt to
follow the guidelines.  Though putting some sort of guardian in the middle
might be welcome as it'd allow the packagers to not have to directly
follow the process.  More "here's my update" kind of thing, then let QA,
releng, whoever else take it from there.

	-Mike


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