RFC: Fedora Extras EOL Policy

[Ed Hill]

> >  * During its legacy maintenance state, do we lock a branch, so that no
> > new packages (i.e. packages which have not been in Fedora Extras before)
> > may be added? With adding new packages to a legacy branch comes the
> > promise to maintain those packages in that branch till end-of-life. Else

+1, lets stop (or strongly discourage) new work in eol-ed versions


> I think that it would be right to let packagers who want to to add new 
> packages, a packager that wants to add a version for eol fedora 
> versions shouldn't be discouraged to do so. But I also agree that it 
> should be accompanied by the promise to maintain the package for that 
> branch also, at least until he orphans the same package for all the fedora 
> versions that are not eol.
> 
> In the same way I think that packagers shouldn't be discouraged to 
> update to the newest releases, and not only backport security fixes, if
> the packager prefers that. And it doesn't cause too much deps issues, of
> course.

-1, I strongly disagree based upon end-user expectations

I vote for consistency.  That is, all packages within both FE and FC are
eol-ed more-or-less simultaneously and are treated in a very similar
manner.  The overall trend here seems to be a convergence (or a blurring
of the distinctions between) of FE and FC.  Having different eol policy
and/or practice within FE/FC (or different expectations on a per-package
basis as Patrice suggests) is, IMO, a lot of confusion for very little
gain.

Expectations regarding bug/security fixes, updates, and other changes
should (in an ideal world) to be communicated loudly, clearly, simply,
and *consistently* to all end users.  Muddying the waters with different
per-package or per-repo or per-whatever behavior is not helpful.

Ed

-- 
Edward H. Hill III, PhD
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