[Mageia-dev] Proposal: Updating released versions (long post)

Fri Oct 8 09:36:09 CEST 2010

On Thu, Oct 07, 2010 at 07:49:29PM -0400, Frank Griffin wrote:
+>I'd like to propose the following model for updating released versions:
+>
+>1) Users should not have to see, except in minor ways, the different
+>repositories.  Urpmi may see them, and advanced or ideologically polar
+>users may care about them (e.g. free vs non-free), but most users
+I object to this specific point, if what we are doing is free software
+that should be made clear to users. and i believe the user shold be
+asked wether they want to use only free software or not.
+
+>2) The update tool we give these users should distinguish between
+>security updates and backports/testing, but present them both.  This is
+updates are not necessarily limited to security, but ok
+backports is one thing, testing is a completely different one
+the only use for testing is pulling out a specific (set of) packages for
+QA purpose, no user should ever see those.
+but the idea of separating the two in the user interface is sound.
+
+>(Here's the biggie :-) )
+>4) We need to enhance the urpmi.recover functionality and bring it fully
+>into mainstream urpmi so that ANY PACKAGE CAN BE ROLLED BACK TO ITS
+>PREVIOUS VERSION (sorry for the caps).  If we don't want to be stuck
+I just read it 3 times, and i still believe doing the above might prove to be a
+nightmare.
+rolling back a single, well identified change is a doable task.
+rolling back proceduraly a complex change becomes exponentially complex
+even for experienced system engineers, let alone a piece of software.
+
+i'll spend more time on doing qa on packages pushed to released distros.
+
+L.
+
+
+-- 
+Luca Berra -- bluca at vodka.it
+