[Mageia-dev] Missing packages in Mageia 1. How to backport?

[andre999]

Ahmad Samir a écrit :
>
> On 10 June 2011 13:44, Wolfgang Bornath<molch.b at googlemail.com>  wrote:
>> 2011/6/10 Michael Scherer<misc at zarb.org>:
>>>
>>> We have used backports in the past for that, and I see no reason to
>>> change that.
>>>
>>> If the problem is that backports were too buggy in the past, then we
>>> should fix backports process, not bypassing them.
>>>
>>> And if we start by pushing new version in update, people will soon
>>> wonder why the new version of X is in updates, while the new version of
>>> Y is not, just because we didn't have X in release and Y was there.
>>
>> Problem I see:
>> So far (in Mandriva), example:  we have used 2010.0/main/backports to
>> offer new versions of software which had an older version in 2010/main
>> but the newer version in 2010.1/main, or as the name says: backporting
>> a newer version of a software from the current release to a previous
>> release, as often used for Firefox.
>
> Firefox should always go to /updates, not backports, usually it has
> many sec fixed, so firefox and thunderbird are special cases.

I agree.
And the same for other software which almost always has security fixes.
(Of course we should enumerate these exceptions.)

>> For Mageia it means, /backports should hold backports of software
>> which has an older version in 1/core but a newer version in cauldron.
>> If we put new software (aka missing packages) in /backports and the
>> user activates /backports he also runs the risk that existing packages
>> of his stable installation will be replaced by real backports of newer
>> versions, backported from Cauldron - which he may not want to do.
>
> Then he shouldn't use backports; but the point is if a totally new
> package, to Mageia 1, that never existed in core, is in backports, the
> user shouldn't see any regression with regard to that package as his
> experience with it before using backports is null, it didn't exist.

We should expect that users _selectively_ install from backports.
That should be documented somewhere for users (if not already).
It seems almost a case for never activating the backport repositories -- considering that backports 
can be selected without those repositories activated.

>> I wonder why we do not put these "missing packages" in /testing and
>> after a while in /core or /non-free or /tainted (wherever they
>> belong). These packages are software which were supposed to be in
>> /core or /non-free or /tainted, they were just forgotten|came too
>> late|whatever for Mageia 1 release freeze.
>
> There will always be late packages, always. One example is a new
> version of foo that was released two days before Mageia's release, it
> won't be submitted through freeze, but will go to backports.
>
> IMHO, backports is way to offer "late" packages to user, whether
> they're new packages or newer versions of packages in
> core/nonfree/tainted, instead of the user installing them from 3rd
> party repos or having to build them himself (not all users are savvy
> with [re]building src.rpm's).

It's usually not strictly necessary to rebuild the rpm's, but it is certainly much nicer to install 
rpm's built for Mageia.  Especially for less advanced users.
And backports is where to put "late" packages.

>> --
>> wobo
>>
>
>

-- 
André