[Mageia-dev] Adobe Flash player 11 Beta 1 in Cauldron

[Margot]

On Sat, 16 Jul 2011 11:47:09 +0200
Michael Scherer <misc at zarb.org> wrote:

> Le samedi 16 juillet 2011 à 10:57 +0300, Ahmad Samir a écrit :
> > On 16 July 2011 02:57, Michael Scherer <misc at zarb.org> wrote:
> > > Le vendredi 15 juillet 2011 à 11:10 +0300, Ahmad Samir a
> > > écrit :
> > >> Hello.
> > >>
> > >> As you've seen the thread, posted by Charles A Edwards,
> > >> there's a new version of flash which has native 64bit
> > >> support, it's still in beta but seems to work well, some
> > >> questions:
> > >> - Any objections about offering it in mga1?
> > >
> > > Yes, I do.
> > > That's a beta, and stable is not a dumping ground for that.
> > >
> > 
> > Right, let's do a head count:
> > Mageia 64bit users who are using the 64bit Adobe Flash 11 Beta
> > 1, please raise your hand (my hand is raised already, I've been
> > using it for 2-3 days).
> > 
> > The point, if there's no other easy way to watch flash for
> > 64bit users without jumping through hoops (using
> > nspluginwrapper, which is occasionally problematic, or using a
> > 32bit browser on an x86_64 system, which entails installing
> > some more 32bit libs), there's a good chance they'll use flash
> > 11, alpha/beta/rc is still better than the hoops.
> > 
> > Also we're talking about pushing it to backports, not updates.
> 
> I think we were all agreeing to raise confidence in backports.
> 
> I think we can also all agree that if Adobe say that's a beta
> version, they are likely more knowledgeable than us about this
> too.
> 
> Is the plugin supported by adobe ? Being still beta, I would say
> it is not for now.
> 
> Some of us may have forgot, but they did withdraw the 64 bits
> version plugin in the past with any communication, because it was
> insecure and unsupported, and already a beta version.
> 
> We can also agree that taking the same policy regarding
> backporting than at Mandriva will just yield the same result, ie
> saying "it is not supported, so use it at your own risk".
> 
> And so, if we want to send the message "backports are supported",
> we should just act accordingly, and not send unsupported
> softwares to it.
> 
> The plugin may work fine now on the machine of everybody, it
> would still be unsupported by adobe.
> 

If we want to send the message “backports are supported”, all we
are actually able to guarantee is that they will be supported *by
Mageia*. And this applies to ALL packages which originate from third
parties, not just backports.

We cannot guarantee that ANY package which is produced outside
Mageia will continue to receive upstream support. Although it seems
unlikely, it is entirely possible that any third party (Mozilla,
KDE, Gnome, Adobe etc.) could close down before the EOL of the
Mageia version in which the third party package is included.

So, if someone *from Mageia* is prepared to support 64-bit Flash 11
- including providing simple instructions for uninstalling it if it
proves to cause problems or is a security risk - then I can see no
reason why it should not be provided as a "supported" backport.

-- 
Margot
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