[Mageia-dev] Backports policy proposal

[andre999]

Michael Scherer a écrit :
> Le lundi 27 juin 2011 à 21:42 -0400, andre999 a écrit :
>> Michael Scherer a écrit :
>>>
>>> Le vendredi 24 juin 2011 à 16:20 -0400, andre999 a écrit :
>>>> Michael Scherer a écrit :
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>>>> - cannot be backported if the package was just created and is thus basically untested in cauldron
>>>>
>>>> What about corner cases where a potential backport is incompatible with changes introduced in
>>>> cauldron ?  Should we leave such packages to third parties ?  (I would tend to say yes.)
>>>
>>> Give a more precise example.
>>
>> Suppose leaf package fooa depends on foob.  foob is part of the current release.
>> Cauldron replaces foob with fooc.  fooa is incompatible with fooc.
>
> Then why do we replace foob by it in the first place if this break fooa ?

(see below)

>> fooa is requested by some users, and future versions of fooa are intended to be
>> compatible with fooc.
>> In this case, even though it wouldn't be testable in cauldron, it could be tested in
>> backports-testing, and I think it could be a good idea to allow it.
>>
>> Even if fooc compatibility wouldn't be available for the next Mageia release, a user
>> could avoid updating for a release in order to keep using fooa.
>> However, if there were no intention to make fooa compatible with fooc, maybe it should
>> be denied.
>
> The example is bogus. If we have fooa in the distro and we upload fooc
> that break it, then we have to fix the breakage as a priority. Usually,
> that would be having foob and fooc as parallel installablable.

The idea is that fooa is not in release, but is compatible with release, and not with 
cauldron.  (More details below.)

> Anyway, the question is "how often does it" happens ? Because "it may
> happen" is not a justification" if in practice, it never happen. And not
> having a backport is not the end of the world so unless the problem is
> quite frequent ( and so far, this one is far from being frequent ,
> especially since it is based on a wrong supposition in the first part ),
> I do not think this would be blocking.

Often enough there will be changes in cauldron to newer packages not entirely compatible 
with the older ones they are replacing.  And other existing packages are dependant on 
them, so they have to be fixed in cauldron.
Backport requests could be compatible with release but not cauldron.  I wouldn't expect 
that to be frequent, but such requests have already happened.
In some cases the updates for compatibility from upstream could just be late in coming.

The question is, should we allow such backports under certain circumstances ?
I'm not necessarily saying yes.
Maybe we should say not for now, to be reviewed later ?

-- 
André