Fedora/RH policies sometimes suck

[Ed Greshko]

Robin Laing wrote:

> In the past I have seen discussions about other repo's that don't
> compile an application to use all the features provided being slammed.
> Mplayer is one application that comes to mind.

A "repo" is not quite the same as a "distro".

> I use OOo daily and until last week I found it very slow.  When I
> installed OOo 2.2 it was so much faster.  There are way to many
> variables to say it is because of something missing due to Fedora
> developers or just major improvements to the 2.2 code that will show up
> in the official FC release.

Maybe you could have installed the same version of OOo from the official
site and compared it with the OOo supplied by FC?

> I will repeat myself when I say that getting support for a product can
> be difficult if a feature is removed from the bistro but there is no
> documentation indicating this available.  You go to the software site
> and their support tells you to do one thing but you find that you cannot
> because that feature or tool has been removed.

Well, you're not supposed to report problems with a "distros" version of
software to the original writers.  And that goes for the "repos" as well.
There is no way for the original writers to know ifwhat changes have been
made to their code.

> Due to this thread I am going to have to check a couple of other
> programs that I use daily to see what features are missing that could
> improve my productivity or features.

Sounds like a nice adventure.

> If the developers don't want to supply a list of changes from the
> original, then users may have to submit bug reports for all those
> missing features.

Of course they won't be *bug* reports if the features were removed
intentionally.  It would be a "request for enhancement/improvement".

The likely response to any such "bug" report would be, "Works as intended"
and the bug closed.

> I understand the legal issues that RedHat has to deal with and as an end
> user, it is better, at least to a point.  On the other hand, it would be
> nice if there was an indication that package X is missing feature Y from
> the developers version.  I am not a developer but I wonder how hard it
> would be to do a diff from the two different sources to find what is
> changed and post that information, even in a raw format.

If you feel strongly about that then you should take the issue to the
fedora-devel-list and/or the Fedora Board.

> I guess it is time to learn how to make my own packages to get around
> these hurdles.

It is a good thing to learn even if there were no "hurdles".

> But as suggested, this is a good topic for the development list.

Run it up the flag pole and see who salutes.




-- 
To err is human, to forgive unusual.