[Mageia-dev] Question about backports: calibre (bug 1659)

[Radu-Cristian FOTESCU]

> Release frequency never was a criteria for differentiating between
> pushing something to updates and something to backports.

It should be. Otherwise, we should all be using OpenOffice.org 1.0.1. -- 
security issues set aside.

> And I see no reason why it would be in favor of doing a bug fix update
> rather than a backport, especially if we ask to do a more stringent QA
> checking on updates, as it would put too much work on the team.

Because Mageia (and Mandriva)'s vision of the concept of "backports" is not 
compatible with my common-sense.

I have not used Mandriva very much in the past, because I hate the concept of
"backports" -- yes, Ubuntu does them too, but Ubuntu backports are totally
unsupported, so you can imagine their "quality"... 

I'd rather stick to "updates" -- this is also the reason I stopped using
Debian, because the morons (yes, morons) were only pushing tzdata updates 
in "volatile", not in "updates", whereas ALL the other distro weres pushing 
tzdata updates in "updates".

If Mageia considers that a 6-7 months old package (for an application that
released 32 times in the meantime) only deserves updates in "backports", 
then I will probably stop reporting any possible bugs with this distro 
-- as a protest.

It is indeed a matter of principle. I am personally using the latest 
calibre installed in /opt, not the official one, but again, it's a 
matter of principle.


Whatever is important and comes from upstream  should go into updates IMHO. 
Backports, in my view, only make sense if they're  coming from Release N+1 
*and* if they represent a major version bump -- such as FF4 over FF3.6, etc.


WRT calibre, Fedora has a simple way: it keeps a newer calibre packages in 
updates/testing for 1 week, and if no user complains about regressions, it 
goes into updates. This is because calibre is a "leaf" package -- no other 
package depends on it, so it only impacts those who are using it.

> Again, that's not a criteria. Every software is important to at least
> one person, and that would mean we should update everything if we start
> to update everything important to one group of users.

I can see how important is calibre to Mageia users. Nobody noticed or cared 
that it is an antiquated version. They could have as well used notepad.exe 
from Win95.


> And for what it is worth, Fedora is discussing having separate update
> and backport ( https://fedorahosted.org/fesco/ticket/515 ), even if the
> discussion seems to be going nowhere at the moment

BS. I hope Fedora *never* uses backports!

Their update policy is very clear *and* flexible:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Updates_Policy

Please note these: 

"Exceptions: Some classes of software will not fit in these guidelines. 
If your package does not fit in one of the classes below, but you think 
it should be allowed to update more rapidly . . . 


Things that would make it more likely to grant a request:
--  The package is a "leaf" node. Nothing depends on it or requires it."

Calibre is a "leaf" package. 

If not, in the same document:

"All other updates must either:
-- reach the criteria laid out in the previous section OR
-- reach the positive Bodhi karma threshold specified by the updates submitter OR
-- spend some minimum amount of time in updates-testing, currently one week."

I am not sure why F15 stopped updating calibre to 0.8.0 in updates (Rawhide went 
up to 0.8.4, maybe 0.8.5 now), but for the versions up to and including 0.8.0, 
here's the dynamics of the updates:

ChangeLog:

* Fri May 6 2011 Kevin Fenzi <kevin at xxxxxxxxx> - 0.8.0-1
- Update to 0.8.0
* Wed May 4 2011 Dan HorÃak <dan at xxxxxxxx> - 0.7.59-2
- rebuilt against podofo 0.9.1
* Sat Apr 30 2011 Kevin Fenzi <kevin at xxxxxxxxx> - 0.7.59-1
- Update to 0.7.59
* Fri Apr 22 2011 Kevin Fenzi <kevin at xxxxxxxxx> - 0.7.57-1
- Update to 0.7.57

(F15 was released with 0.7.56)


Indeed, Mageia does not have the number of packagers that Fedora has. 
However, if Mageia's _policy_ is to rather have 6-7 months old versions in 
updates, I should probably realize that Mageia is not for me.

No, I have not, and never will use any repository called "backports". When a 
newer stable  release of a distro is available, I should update to it if 
updates I need are not pushed into Release N-1 "updates" (even if that release 
is officially still supported with security patches), but again, "backports" 
as Mandriva and Mageia are seeing them -- i.e. backporting 
from  Cooker/Cauldron, not from "updates/testing" nor from "Release N+1" 
-- does not fit my Zen.

R-C