[Mageia-dev] Backports policy clarification (and discussion)

Fri Jun 8 19:56:52 CEST 2012

Le vendredi 8 juin 2012 19:35:28, Sander Lepik a écrit :
+> I don't think that we need to support backports that much. It should be
+> clear that backports might not get all security updates. We should
+> guarantee that it's possible to upgrade to next stable release and that's
+> about it. We really don't have resources for more.
+
+That backports are supported is the key point of the policy, which was 
+discussed and validated months ago. It's not a "let's throw in random 
+packages" media, it's part of the distribution. Resources will limit the 
+number of different packages we are able to backport AND maintain, not the 
+quality of our support.
+
+So I'd like us to discuss the way to attain this objective rather than try to 
+force users needs to fit with what's simpler for us. Solutions probably revolve 
+around taking backports into account during upgrade, which is doable. Hard, 
+maybe, but doable:
+- online upgrade can use backports media for packages not coming from release. 
+If we don't know where a package comes from we can start storing that 
+information somewhere, or guess (any package with higher version installed 
+than that in target distro's updates should be updated using backports media). 
+- DVD could detect packages which can't be updated (in fact, it should do it 
+already since there are already, DVDs having limited space), and warn about 
+them. DVD upgrade should also, if possible, detect dependency problems 
+*before* actually upgrading. Then if network is available ask the user if they 
+want to use online media for safer upgrade.
+
+Samuel
+