Package Maintainers Flags policy

[Jesse Keating]

On Tue, 2009-05-19 at 13:59 -0700, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> That's easier for releng but just as hard for the packager.

Yes, it is unfortunate that our package set got to the point where flags
existed in some of the packages, and that the unwritten rule from RHL
and Fedora Core didn't make it forward into Fedora, the no flags rule.
We'd have to do some clean up, and potentially lose some software in the
process.  We have to decide if we want to trade some software (and
likely some packagers) for the ability for our software to be
distributed to rather large targets, such as China, and potentially gain
contributors, not just packagers.

> If you want something that's truly easier, then I propose, "flags are 
> just another piece of data provided by upstream unless US law makes us 
> care."

There is another concern here.  Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) will
likely continue the "no flags" policy, which means that any software
within Fedora that RHEL would like to ship, the packaging will have to
fork, and patches will have to be created.  This isn't Fedora's problem,
but something for RHT to note when it is deciding what software to take
and how much work will be necessary to make it RHEL worthy.

-- 
Jesse Keating
Fedora -- Freedom² is a feature!
identi.ca: http://identi.ca/jkeating
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