Self-depracating packages was moin/mediawiki/etc [Need buildsys and rpm/yum eyes on this please]

[Michael Stahnke]

>
> 1) Declare a package will need to follow 'Bad-EOL' policy (whatever
> that is finally decided)
> 2) Change the naming of the current package from <package>-x.y.z to
> <package>xy-x.y.z with appropriate tags (obsolete? replaces with
> predjudice?) to replace the package.
> 3) If EOL of old package add a standard file in the package outlining
> that EPEL is EOL this package and will not do updates without
> community help to do so. Also outlining that upgrading to newer
> versions of the package is not simple and you should follow steps at
> "Fill in page here if it exists."
> 3) Make packages in newer versions also match this name:
> <package>(x+1).y.z-(x+1).y.z and keep that up to date until its no
> longer possible.
> 4) Goto #2 when needed.
>
>
Why try to solve this problem only in EPEL?  It exists in the main
Fedora space as well.  Packages like Wordpress, Mediawiki, any Rails
application, java stuff, etc are all like this.  I've often thought
there's got to be a better way.  Should we get this in front of the
package committee?   I see these with two major issues.
1.  Upgrading causes breakage or at least manual intervention
2.  Making these package FHS compliant is a real PITA and then often
makes it so upstream can't/won't help due to your installation method
(paths etc).

I'd rather see this handled by the   Package people and if we need
specific discussion for EPEL, we can have it.

Thoughts?
stahnma