Bugfixes in EPEL via rebases to latest upstream?

[Jan Pazdziora]

Hello,

this is a followup to my FESCo ticket

	https://fedorahosted.org/fesco/ticket/959

where I've been advised to ask on epel-devel-list.

I feel there is an issue with the way cobbler package in EPEL gets
maintained. Since the upgrade to cobbler 2.2, any bugzillas reported
against cobbler (many of which are SELinux-related issues) are
addressed by rebasing to latest upstream version. While upstream-first
is great, it means new issues are introduced to EPEL with these
rebases.

>From the ticket: The bugzilla

	https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=838898
	
is a typical example of the problem. The way I read it, maintainer
plans to keep rebasing the package (when cobbler includes a new
feature it will most likely break with SELinux enabled) while not
attempting to integrate with the rest of the RHEL + EPEL distribution
properly (What we DO recommend is that you disable SELinux unless you
are comfortable writing policy). He furthermore recommends EPEL users
to clean up the mess (how about submitting some patches to either
Dan/Fedora or myself to fix the issue instead). 

Is the maintainer's policy correct and running without enforcing
SELinux is generally accepted, or should the standard approach
in EPEL be to pick stable upstream version and stay with it, fixing
issues by (ideally) submitting fix to upstream while releasing
patched package with the same version and bumped-up release?

Thank you for any clarification,

-- 
Jan Pazdziora | adelton at #satellite*, #brno
Principal Software Engineer, Satellite Engineering, Red Hat