Policy proposal for compatibility packages

[Patrice Dumas]

On Thu, Jan 03, 2008 at 09:47:57AM -0500, Jesse Keating wrote:
> On Thu, 3 Jan 2008 15:42:35 +0100
> Patrice Dumas <pertusus at free.fr> wrote:
> 
> > Why not let the packagers decide for themselves? Packagers should
> > decide on their own how the spend their time best. This should not be
> > in the scope of FESCO.
> > 
> > I can't really see how compat-packages could be a threat to Fedoras 
> > release cycles.
> > 
> > Not trusting packagers is a threat for fedora.
> 
> When those compat packages start failing to rebuild, that slows us
> down.  

Hopefully there are procedures to avoid being slowed down by packages
that don't rebuild. I don't think that compat packages are th emain
packages not rebuilding, unmaintained packages are.

> When too many of our packages rely on those compat packages,

That is another issue. I am all for policy that discourages shipping
packages in fedora that use compat packages.

> that slows us down.  When the package maintainer for the non-compat
> package gets bogged down with bug reports and requests for assistance
> with the -compat package problems that slows us down.

That is a real issue, however the compat package maintainer should take
care of those bugs and the primary maintainer can, like anyone else
and like any other review object to the review.

--
Pat