Fedora Extras vs. CLOSED RAWHIDE

Ralf Corsepius rc040203 at freenet.de
Thu Aug 5 05:57:27 UTC 2004


On Thu, 2004-08-05 at 06:08, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
> On Thu, 05 Aug 2004 04:57:08 +0200, Ralf Corsepius <rc040203 at freenet.de> wrote:
> > The problem is: RH/FC not having fixed "known bugs" prevents
> > Fedora.US/FE from publishing packages for FC1.
> 
> I'm personally not all that thrilled at having FE packagers target
> publishing any new packages in current or old FC releases. I think new
> FE publishing should target FC development and FE 'releases' should
> freeze out on the same timescales as FC instead of obsessing over
> trying to continue to base work on an FC release that is 1 or 2 month
> away from being officially EOLd.
That's not how Fedora.US works and not how it should work, IMO.

> > I am talking about fixing an FC package to make it possible at all to
> > get a new FE package for FC < FC(CURRENT) published.
> 
> And i think this has to be case by case...its grey. Im going to be
> wicked pissed, if I as a user have to download megs of updates just to
> fix a packaging error that could have been worked around in the new FE
> package by the packagers.
Have a look at were the Megs come from you had downloaded in past
updates for RH/FC: kernels, OpenOffice, kernels, glibc, kernels, gcc,
kernels, php, kernels,  sometimes KDE, kernels, sometimes Gnome ...

These by far outweigh "a couple of small selected bug-fix updates".

> > Right, this situation can't completely excluded, but if developers don't
> > work too careless, the risk is pretty small.
> 
> Thats pure optimizism on your part.
No, realism - Remember, I am taking about decisions  on a case-by-case
basis. Therefore, in most cases the consequences of such updates can be
realistically estimated.  In cases the consequences can't be seriously
estimated, such update-requests should be rejected.

If you now have a look at the packages RH/FC *did* update:
The consequences of these updates can hardly be estimated.

> > You don't develop on packages for FC1, I presume?
> 
> FC1 is at best a month away from EOL (though im none too happy that
> there hasnt been an actual FIRM date about FC1 EOL but ill save that
> for another debate) if anyone is still considering building new
> packages against FC1 at this point, its seems a foolhardy goal.
Face the facts: People still are using FC1 and will continue to use it.
And if Fedora Legacy should work out (Which I am very hesitant to
believe), people will continue to use FC1 for quite a while.

If Fedora Legacy should not work out and if FC+FE should not improve,
I'd expect people to switch away from Fedora.

> > IMO, this substantially weakens Fedora.US/FE and therefore causes damage
> > the Fedora Project as a whole in longer terms.
> 
> I think 6 month EOL's for Core make any argument about long term
> projhect damage a little thin.
cf. above.

>  Legacy with its current manpower and infrastructure
IMO, the main issue is not manpower, but inefficiency, "friction" and
lack of attractiveness.

Get Fedora.US a much simplified infrastructure (Build system, package
submission procedure, more automated QA, reliable servers, etc.), then
run Fedora.US as a "rolling distribution", which takes over "maintenance
of discontinued releases", have it contain attractive packages ... 

It's the way all 3rd parties roll their  FC-AddOn repositories.

Ralf

-- 
Registered Linux User #26	http://counter.li.org






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