[Mageia-dev] kernel 3.0 is a big mistake in cauldron

[Radu-Cristian FOTESCU]

> Seriously, look in a mirror and judge yourself, not others.

OK, updating from 2.6.38 to 2.6.40-0.rc7 aka 3.0.0-0.rc7 was the right
thing.

Satisfied now?

There seem to be several standards when judging what to do in an unstable
distro.

In a released distro, the common rule is _not_ to update anything, unless
the minor updates stop and there isn't any other way to provide a security
fix. A next major (or, sometimes, even a next minor) update only comes with
the next distro release. Backports are possible, but optional. People
needing newer versions of specific packages either are building them
themselves from upstream (quite rare), or they're using 3rd-party repos
(e.g. PPAs).

So, sorry to repeat: in a _stable_ distro, even upgrading to the next
_stable_ release is usually _forbidden_. (Fedora is kind of an exception
here, but passons...)

In something like Cauldron them, there are several degrees of possible
freedoms:

i. Upgrading packages to the next _stable_ version, like the recent
LibreOffice update.
This is the first degree of differentiation from a stable/release distro.

ii. Upgrading packages to the next _beta/RC_ version, like it's usually the
case with KDE, GNOME (and rightfully so).
This is the second degree of differentiation from a stable/release distro.
IMHO, this should be used with care.
When you say "caludron is by definition unstable, we don't need an extra
testing stage", you implicitely state that Fedora Rawhide's policies are
stupid and only yours is a valid one.

iii. Upgrading the _kernel_ (or the system and session manager, or other
_critical_ system parts) to the next _beta/RC_ version, which IMNSHO is not
the right thing to do, unless there are 2 different metapackages
(latest-stable-kernel and latest-kernel), so that people who are using a
cooker/cauldron/rawhide/unstable distro be able to choose the degree of risk
they're willing to adopt:
a). risking everything;
b). risking mostly application/DE breakage, yet having a reasonable degree
of confidence that the system as a whole is not really broken except in
extremely rare cases.


Of course, your distro, your policies.


OTOH, I've had in the past the proof that FLOSS developers typically lack
common sense. A few examples:

1. Arch Linux developers can't understand that developing a few scripts (a
la Slackware, not a la Mandriva) that would assist the user into further
system & DE configuration after the initial install makes a lot of sense.
100 hours of developers' time  vs. 1,000,000 hours of users' wasted
post-install time. => Develop once, use by everyone.

2. The same for Gentoo-like distros (stage 1). Having everybody building
every package for every system is useless in 99.9999% of the time, as the
claimed "optimisations" might be of 2-3% in terms of speed, whereas the
millions of users' wasted time (and electrical energy!) are a huge nonsense
-- and it's anti-ecological too! => Build once, install by everyone.

3. FreeBSD devs have been extremely opaque wrt binary updates. I've not been
using FreeBSD since ages, but I believe that, even if they do have binary
updates now, they're not in plain repositories that could be browsed
(FTP/HTTP) like the Linux updates repos. Once again, patching the FreeBSD
style is a huge waste of time and adds unnecessary risks.

4. XFCE devs really can't understand/accept that _not_ having for the
desktop icons a text label drawn with transparency & outline (instead of the
default opaque background) makes their DE look like Win95. (Transparency
came with Win98 and outlining... I'm not sure.)

5. There are gazillions of _relevant_ bugs (even in applications like gedit,
kate, whatnot) that never got fixed, whereas the developers of the
respective DEs always try to add new features, sometimes exotic and
irrelevant ones (compiz-included). It's like they prefer the glitter (the
bling-bling) to _relevant_ functionality. Yet, they develop for Linux, not
for Windows. Go figure.

6. "If it ain't broken, don't fix it." Countless examples (y compris KDE4,
GNOME3, but I'n not going into this), I'll just say SysV
init/systemd/upstart/whatnot -- I'm not even interested in this crap. It is
crap for me because:
i. Booting time is irrelevant for servers, they're 99.99999% up.
ii. Only stupid desktop users would shutdown when hybernation
(suspend-to-disk) is available.
iii. Gaining 10 seconds in boot time is not worthing, if the price is a
disruptive redesign of the _entire_ init process, with tons of downstream
work for everyone.

But, as I said, I never trust the judgment of FLOSS/pro-bono developers. So
I don't expect any of you to understand my rationale -- I even expect
Dodonov to piss on my words, as he already did today. (Quite unexpected, as
he already worked for Microsoft, and so far no Microsoft guy mocked me.)

R-C aka beranger