RFC: Package maintenance and update policy for EPEL -- take 1

[Patrice Dumas]

On Wed, Mar 14, 2007 at 11:19:31PM -0700, Greg Swallow wrote:
> 
> "Before creating an EPEL branch for a package, maintainers should check 
> if the package is available from RPMForge,  ATrpms, or CentOS Extras 
> (and others??).  If that is the case, it would be best to consider that 
> many thousands of users may have that package installed already on their 
> EL4/EL5 systems.  Maintainers should inform the other packager of their 
> intention to create the EPEL branch, and include them in any discussion 
> regarding the package.  It is also recommended to ensure that the EPEL 
> package is a compatible upgrade from the other package, while still 
> ensuring the Fedora packaging guidelines are followed."
> 
> Does that sound reasonable?

It sounds reasonable to me, and important. But it would be even better 
if people running third party repos were invited to join EPEL. If I'm
not wrong it is already the case for ATrpms and CentOS Extras. 

It also seems to me that Centos Extras is special since it uses the same
base than EPEL. I don't know exactly what could be the implication, but
maybe something automatic could be done (like when it appears on EPEL 
the Centos Extras build may be disabled).


--
Pat