alpha/beta software in Fedora 8?

Matej Cepl mcepl at redhat.com
Thu Nov 29 09:23:07 UTC 2007


On Wed, 28 Nov 2007 15:45:31 +0100, Christopher Aillon scripst:

> On 11/28/2007 01:55 PM, Jesse Keating wrote:
>> On Wed, 28 Nov 2007 07:46:53 -0500
>> "Tom \"spot\" Callaway" <tcallawa at redhat.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Well, I'm not sure how it can be considered perfect when it does not
>>> begin to address the "alpha/beta" issue that you think is resolvable
>>> with packaging policy.
>> 
>> "In general, it is preferred if maintainers avoid releasing "alpha" or
>> "beta" builds of packages into Fedora (both Rawhide and released
>> updates).  However a package maintainer has the right to use their own
>> discretion regarding this issue and may provide whatever (s)he sees fit
>> for the user base.  Things to consider include the amount of testing an
>> alpha or beta release has seen, the timeline to turn said alpha or beta
>> into a stable release, the feature sets provided, or the bugs fixed.
>> There may be other factors at play as well, which is why the person
>> best suited to make such a decision is the package maintainer in
>> question."
> 
> This would also work.  Just so a maintainer can figure out what general
> path they should be following in a release.  /me likes.

I think this is the way to hell -- we will be writing long and longer 
legalese which won't mean much more than "Don't be stupid and test your 
packages". If there is need for some hints how to find out whether the 
upstream release (or non-release) is good enough for Fedora, than let's 
make HOWTO or something like that, but please don't try to write rules 
about something which cannot be codified.

Matěj

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