RFC: Fedora Extras EOL Policy

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Fri, 2006-04-14 at 15:34 +0200, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 13:11:02 +0200, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> 
> > >  * With terms like "end-of-life", "life-cycle", "maintenance state" come
> > > promises with regard to the expectations raised by our users. It is
> > > important that we don't keep a legacy branch open just because parts of
> > > the contributor community insist on publishing updates for it, while the
> > > majority has moved on to do only the current branches.
> > 
> > Why not? If a part of the community is willing to maintain a package, they
> > should be able to do it.
> 
> That would be the "some do, some don't" playground.
Yes, and where is the problem?

FE is a volunteered effort, so this is inevitable, even in FC(current).

> We try to move away from Fedora Extras being a second class citizen.
And how is this problem related to FE-EOL?

The causes which let appear FE as a second class citizens are elsewhere.
Wrt. this, IMO, FE-EOL policy is a marginal, negligible detail.

> We cannot do that as long as we lack a well-defined life-cycle compared
> with Fedora Core.
Sorry, I don't see this connection.

>  And when we distinguish between active (i.e. maintained,
> "supported") branches, legacy branches and dead branches, we need policies
> which allow for improved security response times,
Do we? People running an EOL'ed FC are running a "legacy maintained
distro", i.e. already are on loose ground. 

>  e.g. through the work of
> a Fedora Extras security response team, which under well-defined
> conditions may touch packages in _all_ branches. Whether these are the
> same people who would maintain legacy branches, is an unimportant detail.
Agreed, but I don't see how is this issue is connected to an FE-EOL
policy?

> And yes, we do need improved
Yes.

>  and stricter policies on how to handle
> orphaned packages.
No, we need clearer policies and less narrow minded policies - I.e.
"task forces" or "tag teams" or whatever you want to call it, i.e.
teams, not egocentric individuals being keen on fencing up against the
neighbor, as FE-policies current encourage it.

Ralf