Exim

[Greg DeKoenigsberg]

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005, David Woodhouse wrote:

> On Thu, 2005-03-17 at 15:06 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
> > However, this eliminates one of the benefits of Extras, namely,
> > ability for external access to packages for maintenace needs.
> 
> That isn't really an advantage for a RHEL package. It's more of a
> disadvantage, in fact.

How so?  I don't see that at all.

Maybe I'm missing a nuance here, but this seems fairly simple to me.

You *own* the RHEL version, and if it exists, the Core version.  You
package it exactly as you want.  That will not change.

In cases where there IS a RHEL version but there is NOT a CORE version, as
in this case, then the package must instead exist in Extras.  This is a
Good Thing.  In this case:

  (1) The community gets some Exim, as opposed to no Exim.  Hurrah!
  (2) The community gets the chance to update Exim more, or less, 
      frequently than the RHEL version gets updated.  Choice.  Hurrah!

These two facts need have *nothing* to do with your maintenance of Exim in 
RHEL.  Nothing.  Nada.

Now, of course, it's in your power to help the people out by making your 
work on Exim available to the Extras community.  You can:

  (a) Take a few minutes to import your sources into Extras CVS every time
      you update the RHEL version; or
  (b) Take a few minutes to import your sources into Extras CVS once, and
      then declare it orphaned and let someone else handle it; or
  (c) Pretend that Exim for Extras doesn't exist, let someone in the
      community package it, and whenever anyone brings it up, put your
      hands over your ears and hum Lady of Spain.

Option (a) is clearly the friendliest path, but absolutely *nothing* 
precludes you from choosing options (b) or (c).  And if you do, absolutely 
*nothing* precludes the community from maintaining Exim, however they see 
fit, in Extras.  If you choose to ignore this fact, then the impact on the 
version YOU maintain is exactly zero.

Again -- am I missing something?  Because if I'm not, it seems like the 
policy is clear as a bell.

--g

_____________________  ____________________________________________
  Greg DeKoenigsberg ] [ the future masters of technology will have
 Community Relations ] [ to be lighthearted and intelligent.  the
             Red Hat ] [ machine easily masters the grim and the 
                     ] [ dumb.  --mcluhan