[Mageia-dev] Mirror layout, round two

Michael Scherer misc at zarb.org
Tue Nov 30 04:47:25 CET 2010


Le lundi 29 novembre 2010 à 15:56 -0500, andre999 a écrit :

> Isn't choice part of 
> what Linux is supposed to be about ?

No. 

That's freedom of the source code, not choice. Reread either Gnu
manifesto, or Linus Torvalds biography.

And so, you are free to use the source code for what you want, period.

> I think that one advantage of using the mirror structure is that it is a 
> sandbox that makes it clear to everyone (packagers, maintainers, current 
> and potential users, qa, etc) what is officially supported and what is not.
> It has largely worked for Mandriva.

No.
See the various example I gave. You are not even a packager, how can you
speak for them by telling "it is clear to everyone" when several
packagers have expressed that it is a mess ?


> What didn't work is
> (1) the lack of a well-defined and applied criteria for what is to be 
> officially supported, and
>
> (2) the lack of a clear applied policy and strategies of how to deal 
> with possible dependancies of supported packages on non-supported packages.

The policy was always clear. Main is self contained. This was enforced
in 2006 with the use of iurt to build rpm.

Every policy of mixing package from main or contribs would be too
complex from a technical point of view, unsafe from a security point of
view, incomplete from a QA point of view and a blatant lie for people
telling "this software is supported" while it depend on unsupported
components.

> Without this sandbox, packagers are much less likely to do what is 
> necessary to ensure that supported packages are fully supported, 
> including dependancies.  Including getting the necessary support from 
> others to achieve this.
> Support is much more than an official maintainer.
>
> The supposed advantages of discarding a set of repositories over having 
> an obvious sandbox aren't clear.
>
> Another mechanism allowing the end-user to select only supported 
> packages will be at least as complex.
> There will be no difference for mirrors.  (Same size, just a few extra 
> directories.)
> Packagers can't help but notice if accessing dependancies outside the 
> sandbox.

Are you sure you have a idea on how packages are built at Mandriva or on
various distributions ?
Because right now, what you say doesn't make sense to me, and I can
guarantee that I know how it work.

> > [ stormi's example ]
> Excellent example.
> This also points to the advantage of a mirror-based categorization.  
> Support should only change by release, not stop somewhere in between.  

This is distribution made by volunteers. If no one want to do the job,
then the job will not be done. So if no one want to maintain something,
what should be done ?

And if someone want to do the job, the only thing he has to do is to
become maintainer.

So no, the example is not "excellent". It is based on a single important
change : "someone will step to maintain it", while in my example, I
precisely pre-supposed the contrary.

So the comparaison is totally invalid and misleading.


-- 
Michael Scherer



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