Fedora Extras packaging beta software into production repos, why?

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

Michael Schwendt schrieb:
> On Wed, 25 Oct 2006 09:56:09 +0200, Axel Thimm wrote:
>> ATrpms is packaging asterisk and friends for quite some time
>> now. ATrpms' buildsystem has also enabled Fedora Extras during the
>> build procedure to ensure better interoperability, e.g. use BR's out
>> of Fedora Extras.
>>
>> For some reason Fedora Extras now had to package a beta version of the
>> asterisk suite instead of the current release. I'm used to packagers
>> at FE ignoring existing packages at other repos which is a bad thing
>> per se, but why
>>
>> - packaging a beta software that is known to have troubles,
>> - creates broken builds for other non-suspecting repos and
>> - gets right into production repos like FC5?
>>
>> Note that for some packages it really makes sense to use
>> beta/prereleases, VCS cuts and the like, but there is no reason to do
>> so in this case.
>>
>> As a consequence I will not only need to rebuild all of the asterisk
>> suite again to pick up the proper dependencies, but also to stop using
>> Fedora Extras as a repo for build requirements and start using Epoch
>> on clean packages.
> 
> This topic came to a sudden end on the same day it was started, without a
> clear resolution and without any conclusion on whether including beta
> versions of some software is "okay" in this case.
> 
> Has FESCo looked into this?

Nope, not that I'm aware off. If somebody feels that FESCo should look
at it please propose a solution for this problem (and how it can be
prevented in the future) and put if up for discussion here on the list
so community and FESCo members can comment. Putting it up in the wiki so
other can enhance/modify it gives bonus points. Adjust the proposal if
needed after the discussion. Then FESCo will look at it in a meeting --
if a consensus was found on the list is should be nothing more then "do
as prosoed and discussed on the list? foo: +1, bar +1, foobar: +1 ..."

That's how it should work IMHO to get stuff like this solved (and that's
how stuff within FESCo gets done normally, too; see for example the
recent AWOL extensions, the "When to fix other peoples packages stuff).
Some people would prefer to say "here is a problem, FESCo please solve
it", but that often doesn't work to well afaics. People that are
interested in an issue are often the best to get that issue solved. And
they don't have to be FESCo members to get it solved.

CU
thl