[Mageia-dev] Missing packages in Mageia 1. How to backport?

[Samuel Verschelde]

Le samedi 11 juin 2011 14:26:19, Maarten Vanraes a écrit :
> Op zaterdag 11 juni 2011 13:14:29 schreef Samuel Verschelde:
> > Le samedi 11 juin 2011 12:06:55, Christiaan Welvaart a écrit :
> > > On Fri, 10 Jun 2011, Michael Scherer wrote:
> > > > We can agree that everybody want something newer for some rpms, but
> > > > few people want everything to be newer ( ie, now one run backports
> > > > as a update media, I think ). So as much as I am against asking to
> > > > users questions, we must show them the choice somewhere, in a non
> > > > obstrusive way.
> > > 
> > > Maybe, but how would be "support" this? We must be able to reproduce a
> > > reported problem. This becomes complicated when we don't know what is
> > > installed on the user's system. A guideline for bug reporters is (or
> > > should be) "make sure you installed the latest updates". What would be
> > > the equivalent for backports? I'm afraid it should be "if you installed
> > > any backports, make sure you installed all backports that are relevant
> > > for your system". If someone has a problem with any other combination,
> > > the bug report might be rejected. How would QA even work when only
> > > selected packages are upgraded from backports, or integration testing:
> > > integration with what?
> > > 
> > > So the only combinations we can support are:
> > >    - release + updates
> > >    - release + updates + backports
> > > 
> > > More practical: for mga1 I have a VM that I can keep updated. For mga1
> > > backports I can install another VM with backports enabled. But for bugs
> > > reported with only selected backports installed I suppose I would have
> > > to install a new VM with mga1, update it, and install only those
> > > backports -
> > 
> > > for each bug report. But maybe I'm missing something, please explain. (:
> > If we suppose that either updates or backports are supported (with a
> > support level to be defined), the situation is simpler to me :  a good
> > backport must work  with all its dependencies coming from updates or
> > release OR it must explicitly require higher versions, found only in the
> > backports media and so automatically pulled.
> > 
> > So I don't think that having picked up only certain backported packages
> > is a problem for the maintainer's support. Maybe I over-simplified the
> > situation, but I don't think it will be as complex as you say.
> > 
> > Samuel
> 
> imho this creates more work for packagers or qa team to support backports,
> i'm not really in favor of this solution

So it someone has a problem with a package you backported and reports it in 
bugzilla, you'll answer "not supported" and close the door ? Then we have not 
a single chance to have users accept to use backports rather than ask for a 
rolling release (supposing that we want to stay with stable releases model, 
which hasn't been decided yet).

In my opinion, a backport must be either supported or not exist. Even in 
Mandriva, where everybody keep saying "backports ain't supported", usually 
people try to solve the problems caused by backports.

However, the level of support can be different between backports and updates, 
as I said in my previous message. The differences are yet to define, but here 
are some I see :
- when a critical bug in a backport exists, you can simply update to a newer 
version and see if it's solved
- if the program already is in its the latest version and has an upstream bug, 
you can answer "report the bug upstream" and stop there until upstream solves 
the bug. For packages in release or updates, ideally you have to try to help 
fixing it or work it around because the bug is considered part of the whole 
distribution.

Best regards

Samuel
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