rawhide report: 20050310 changes

[Jeff Spaleta]

On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 18:32:33 +0100, Arjan van de Ven <arjanv at redhat.com> wrote:
> can we just stick it inside the kernel rpm instead? that solves the
> entire issue...

>From the perspective of Core.. sure it solves it... everytime Core
developers want a specialized kernel module thats not in upstream..
they can choose to deviate and patch it into the kernel. Though every
time that happens it weakens the stated Fedora Core objectives
statement about doing as much as upstream as possible and opens the
door wider for community requests to include even more patches to the
fedora kernel.  So over time you either cave in to pressure to add
popular patches adding maintainership burden... or you inspire
community ill-will by ignoring reasonable patch requests on the
grounds that core developers don't have the time or resources for the
extras functionality patches. But what you have no accomplished is
facilitate a way for community to step up and maintain the
non-upstream kernel functionality inside the fedora project.

>From the perspective of Fedora project in general... this isn't a
solution at all...it just pushes the issue outward to the poor
packagers who are going to want to include kernel modules in Fedora
Extras.  This issue of how to best maintain addon kernel modules is
not going to go away... and giving Core developers an easy excuse to
ignore the technical difficulties isn't going to help come up with
consistent solutions to the problems.

-jef