[Mageia-dev] Proposal for backport process and policy

Tue Jul 26 07:56:36 CEST 2011

on Tue, 26 Jul 2011 08:34
+in the Usenet newsgroup gmane.linux.mageia.devel
+Samuel Verschelde wrote:
+
+[snip]
+> *** Old backports ***  
+> Remove old backports when newer ones are submitted
+> - otherwise we let people use old bugged or plagged with security issues 
+> packages, when they don't necessarily know that there are problems with them
+> - simpler choice : users have to choose between the version in updates and the 
+> one in backports, not more
+> - less space on mirrors (fear wesnoth and vegastrike multiple backports !)
+> 
+> Thank you for reading.
+> 
+>  Best regards,
+> 
+> Samuel Verschelde
+
+It is theoretically possible that there could be multiple versions with 
+bug fixes and feature enhancements with no known security problems in any 
+of them.  FireFox appears to be almost going down that path.  I think 
+that FF 5 is just FF 4.0.3 with a silly name - please correct me if I am 
+wrong - and 5 should obsolete 4.  But I can imagine several versions 
+existing during the life of a LTS release.  
+
+The deletion criteria should be, "there is a vulnerability that that is 
+not going to be fixed".  That is usually, but not always the same as, 
+"there is a new version".  
+
+Is it possible that a feature enhanced version could be a suggested 
+update until a security hole is discovered in the old version, then 
+the new version becomes an update?  
+
+If you make an administrative decision that five versions of FF is 
+too many I won't complain.  
+
+