[Mageia-dev] Release cycles proposals, and discussion

[Jehan Pagès]

Hi,

On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 11:16 PM, Thorsten van Lil <tvl83 at gmx.de> wrote:
> Am 14.06.2011 15:43, schrieb Michael Scherer:
>>>
>>> Yes, but Backports are not officially supported and we wouldn't advice
>>> new users
>>> >  to backports normally.
>>
>> I am sorry, but I fail to follow your reasoning.
>
> What I meant is: We can't tell the user to use the backports and if he runs
> in trouble we let him alone and say he shouldn't have used it. If we
> officially support and care for backports, than this is a different case.

Agreed on this.

>> And as I said in another mail, if people want to follow arch linux and
>> do a better job, maybe they should start to explain what are the weak
>> points of the distribution and then do proposal on stuff that can be
>> done better instead of asking to copy cat hoping this would be better.
>
> I don't want a full rolling release, because of the listed disadvantages.
> So, if you ask me what is "wrong" with Arch, I would say:
> * due to the rolling release, it's nearly vanilla. This doesn't match
> requirements of Mageia
> * no innovations (because of vanilla)
> * a rolling core system has a negative correlation with it's stability
> * heavy work load
> * ...
>
> So, I don't ask for a copy of Arch nor any other distribution. I asked
> (although it wasn't my idea) for something new. An compromise: a light
> rolling release.
>
> Further lack of clarity?

So basically what people call a "light" rolling release in this thread
is a rolling release where packages are tested and integrated? And
what you call a (non-light) rolling release is a development rolling
release (cooker, cauldron…) where packages are just dropped without
prior security checked as fast as they are made available by their
respective authors?

If so, I would say, yeah obviously "light" (I find this naming quite
paradoxical then) is the kind of rolling I would like. And that's not
that new, that's the kind of rolling release in Gentoo (which I found
much more stable than my years of experience in Mandriva, and also
more peaceful as I don't have to fear the big update every 6 months
which will definitely break a lot of small stuffs everywhere at once).

Also yes, I guess this could be simulated using the current backport
system becoming a supported repo (with package getting appropriately
tested and the right integration into the distribution done). I don't
say this is the ideal system, but that can be a first step in the
evolution.
As Anne Nicolas said, this may be only a matter of rewriting the policy.
Yet if doing so, I think it would still need abstraction on UI side at
least. User should not have to deal and even understand concept as
backport, or whatever. On the user point of view, all one should care
is knowing a newer version, which is supposed tested and approved, is
available.

Jehan