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

[Samuel Verschelde]

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