RFC: Mass rebuild of Fedora Extras before FC5 and how to handle orphaned packges for FC5

[Josh Boyer]

On Sun, 2006-01-15 at 20:33 +0100, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> Am Sonntag, den 15.01.2006, 21:11 +0200 schrieb Ville Skyttä:
> > On Sun, 2006-01-15 at 19:59 +0100, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> > 
> > > Blender, tetex-eurofont, hackedbox, perl-IO-Tty, autotrace, ninja are
> > > just some examples from the first 12 packages that were not rebuild in
> > > the last year. 
> > 
> > blender needs more than just a rebuild:
> > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/176632
> 
> Yeah. But the question is: Should we still ship the old version? Someone
> at least should make sure that it still works.
> 
> > > So guys, how do we do actually do that? 
> > [...]
> > > And we need some scripts that automate the process!
> > 
> > FWIW, I would prefer rebuilding the packages I maintain manually myself.
> 
> Agreed. The idea for the script I described should be modified a bit:
> 
> a) for the 10 oldest packages in the current extras/development repo:
> increase release in cvs and add changelog entry "Rebuild".
> b) request build of those 10 packages. 
> c) wait for the buildsys to finish those 10. That gives a chance for
> other packagers to have access to the buildsys (to build for other dists
> -- otherwise it might take to long until important security updates get
> build)
> d) Up to a specific date: Go back to a)
> 
> We probably need repoquery to get a list of packages in buildorder. Can
> it do something like that?

Why does this need to be scripted?  I'd rather do something like the
following:

1) Create a FE5 blocker bug.
2) Open a rebuild bug for every package in devel and add it to #1.
3) Maintainers rebuild their packages, fixing issues as they encounter
them.
4) Close the bugs as they are completed.

That way the process is tracked, you can see which packages are still
wanting rebuilds, the maintainers are involved, and the packages get a
bit more attention from the folks that know them the best.

Just mt $0.02.

josh