Testing test releases: do not update

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, Wayne Frazee wrote:

...

> A good way to look at it is like this.  Development of a Fedora release
> may look something like this:
> 
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^/\^^^^^^^^^^/\^^^^^^^^^^^^/\
> 
> Each  ^ is a rawhide release.  Each /\ is a test release.  You see, they
> are all the same product, the thing is that each rawhide release is a
> fix or a change, released to interested persons RIGHT THEN.  This is
> most often nearly untested code.  
> 
> Its all part of the process to the same product, not a separate product
> or any such thing.  Rawhide is just a way for you to get the VERY latest
> in what the developers are working with for the next release version.

hang on a sec, there was one point i was trying to clarify in my previous
post.  (i'm not trying to be difficult; i am merely succeeding.)

i understand now that, by definition, rawhide represents the current state
of the test, and that *everything* in rawhide is theoretically going to be
included in the next release.  so far, so good.

but is there any way now that the fedora folks can offer up some package 
or newer release of a package that they'd like to offer for testing, but 
is simply too new/untested to be included even in rawhide?

perhaps the package is just too new/untested for RH's comfort level to be 
put into rawhide, but they'd still love to get feedback on it.  perhaps 
it's too close to an official release and there's been a feature freeze.

in short, is there any mechanism/channel to provide packages that the
fedora folks would like to offer for testing, but are too far ahead of the
curve, even by rawhide's standards?  or is it the position that, if it
doesn't belong in rawhide, we're not going to talk about it.  i have no
problem with that, i just wanted to make sure i understood.

rday

p.s.  as animated and as heated as this discussion has gotten at times, i 
just wanted to thank everyone who's put the time into making me understand 
how all this works.  so ... *who's* writing this testing HOWTO? :-)