new RPM version and Feature process (was: Re: Heads-up: brand new RPM version about to hit rawhide)

[Jeff Spaleta]

On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 10:26 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'll argue that not every package upgrade is worth a Feature
> designation.  But the major ones should be.  Firefox 3 had one.  I
> believe OpenOffice.org should have one.  For a major rpm upgrade, there
> should be one as well.

Distill that feeling into a generally applicable statement that
package maintainers can use as a conditional test as to whether or not
they should file a feature.

For example... the python-matplotlib that I just introduced into
rawhide.. it has enhancements, and some internal api changes. Does it
matter enough as a package to be a Fedora Feature?

If I can get a new gdl built with the python module support
enable..will that matter?

I need a bright line test that makes sense that limits how much of my
individual judgement has to be used for the packages that I maintain.
I need a checklist or a scorecard....I need a Cosmo quiz.

And its completely okay if the test/checklist/scorecard that we think
is best can be fully created yet.  For example.. if we feel that a
packages "popularity" is important to rank something as a feature,
then we put that on the checklist and we then go out and build
whatever popularity metric is necessary to support that part of the
checklist.

-jef"is definitely not in favor of any popularity metric"spaleta