Fedora Extras vs. CLOSED RAWHIDE

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Tue, 2004-08-03 at 20:08, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> On Tue, 03 Aug 2004 17:12:10 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> 
> > Some examples:
> > 
> > * In some cases such "known bugs" prevent Fedora Extras to supply
> > packages for downstream releases, because the officially released
> > packages the Fedora Extras packages are based on are broken.
> > 
> > E.g. "missing shared libs in ghostview"
> > http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=88175
> > break gsview for FC1
> > https://bugzilla.fedora.us/show_bug.cgi?id=1940
> 
> Though, in this case the extra package should not have been released for
> FC1. The explicit dependency on a shared library soname should not have
> passed QA for FC1.
ACK, in this case, FE's QA has failed.

Nevertheless, it has revealed a known problem ("CLOSED RAWHIDE") in
FC1's ghostscript, on which the RH packager formerly had decided that it
were not important enough to the public to justify a public update.

IMO, both are separate problems:
* The former is a failure that should not have happened, however such
failures are inevitable and for sure will happen again. Here, FE is
challenged to improve it's QA.

* The latter is a different kind of problem:
- Individual perception of the "importance on a bug" is subjective.
- "Importance of a bug" is subject to change over time.


Before FE, there basically were 2 parties: RH + individual users.
RH could afford to close bugs "CLOSED RAWHIDE" when a bug did not affect
the "masses", while individual users having been affected by such a bug
could individually pickup "unofficial fixes" from upstream/rawhide.


With FE, the situation has changed: There now are 3 parties: RH/FC + FE
+ individual users.

1) One can argue that FE is just another arbitrary "individual user".
OK, no problem at all.  Then FE has to be allowed to apply the
work-around individual users had to apply before FE: Replace packages
from FC by packages from upstream/rawhide.
=> FE's policy has to be changed

2) FE is a privileged "3rd party" closely interacting with RH/FC.
In this case FE has to be enabled to influence decisions having been
taken by RH/FC.
=> RH/FC has to implement formal means for FE to do so.

Another approach would be FE to ignore such problems and not to try
working around such bugs.
=> FE can not provide any packages that are affected by such bugs.

> > IMO, it would be best if RH/FC would prefer not to close bugs as "CLOSED
> > RAWHIDE" when ever reasonable/applicable and to officially upgrade the
> > package instead. 
> > Alternatively, it could also be worth to consider handing over such a
> > package to "Fedora Extra" for "interim band-aid packages".
> 
> No. That would make it a Fedora Core bug-fix update and would not be an
> extra package. Updates to Fedora Core must not be released in Fedora
> Extras.

That's fedora.us's current policy. I feel excluding changes in FE's
policy at this point in time would be a mistake (cf. above).

Having read Michael Tiemann's draft and struggling with "CLOSED RAWHIDE"
bugs as a contributor to FE (and as an "ordinary user"), I see a need
for changes in both FC's and FE's policies.

Ralf