[Mageia-dev] Support policy

[Samuel Verschelde]

Hi, 

I would like to discuss the support policy for Mageia.

It would be interesting to know (or decide) where Mageia is heading, given our limited resources :
1) focus on stability and security : few very well equally supported packages. Apparently, this is where we're going for now.  May be wise as a start, but I hope this is not our final destination, because it means either very limited choice, or progressive diminution of quality of support if the number of packages increases faster than the dedicated resources.
2) focus on choice : many packages, but no support policy. This would be really bad, I think we're not heading there, from what I read. However, this is a danger if we start from option 1) and then open wide the gates for importing packages, without setting a support policy.
3) focus on both (this is my option). There would be 2 levels of support :
   - top guaranteed support : those are the (few at start) packages your can rely on almost blindly, they'll be updated in a timely manner, and updates don't break things. Those are the packages the QA Team puts its limited resources on (doesn't mean the QA Team provides the support themselves, this is maintainer work, but they check that good support is provided) : testing, helping the maintainers to watch for security problems... The maintainers are responsible for their package, but the QA Team double-checks updates for stable releases. 
   - supported packages (every other package) : those are maintained packages, however the QA Team doesn't have to check them. It's up to the maintainer to check the package and updates quality.
   - unsupported packages are dropped.

Are we heading for 1), 2), 3), or any other option ?

Of course, with unlimited resources, options 1 and 3 would be equivalent, everything would have the "top guaranteed support" :)

Best regards

Samuel Verschelde
Packager/QA Team/User