[Mageia-dev] Update of backport, policy proposal

Sun Jun 26 10:58:04 CEST 2011

2011/6/26 Wolfgang Bornath <molch.b at googlemail.com>:
+> A short reality check from userside:
+>
+> If foo-1.0 is in Mageia 1 and foo-1.1 is released upstream
+>  - foo-1.1 will likely be integrated in Cauldron very soon after
+>  - users will request to have foo-1.1 in Mageia 1
+>  - if Mageia will not provide it then there will soon be local
+> repositories where local packagers will do a "backport" for their
+> friends.
+>
+> This may not be what Mageia backport policy will allow but we can not
+> avoid people doing and using this, no matter how many warning signs we
+> will publish. This has to be taken into account here.
+>
+> When a policy is found it has to be communicated very well, especially
+> if that policy means that the user can not have foo-1.1 in his stable
+> Mageia 1.
+>
+> This is important because former Mandriva users were used to get
+> almost all new versions backported, if not officially then in 3rd
+> party repos like MIB or MUD.
+>
+> --
+> wobo
+>
+Hi. I'm following this threat from the very beginning. While reading,
+i feel i'm reading a Mandriva Cooker mailing list posts. As a
+community distro, why Mageia developers still think like a Mandriva
+employee? Why backports and why so many policies, like a commercial
+enterprise distro? I mean, Mageia do not have paid developers to work
+on packages all the time. Also Mageia do not have so many packagers
+like Fedora or Ubuntu, So, why make so many things so hard?
+
+As wobo mentioned, people like latest and greatest software. I think,
+except a few users will use unofficial 3rd party repos to get latest
+software. While i was maintaining MVT (Mandriva Turkiye) repository,
+our users asked for GNOME 2.32 while Mandriva have GNOME 2.30 on
+official release.
+
+Personally i always hate the backports structure and policy. It
+confuses minds. Why Mageia need a backports repo, i really do not
+understand. Stability and bug free releases are of course a must. But
+it needs developers dedicated to work, almost paid developers. If a
+software do not related with core system, like vlc, it should included
+updates repo. Let upstream fix bugs and security issues. If a packager
+catchs a bug he should send a patch to upstream and wait for a new
+release. Otherwise, it is not packaging it is coding, which many
+potential packgers will avoid to contribute.
+
+Look at Debian and Arch Linux who haven't any paid developers but
+community distros. Stable Debian releases provide software from a
+century ago for the sake of stability. Arch provides latest software
+including core system and occaionally have breakages. I think Mageia
+should be between two of them. Release latest software in updates for
+non core system and libs, keep core system stable. Remove this
+backports thingy.
+
+My 2 cents...
+