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

[Radu-Cristian FOTESCU]

>From: andre999 <andr55 at laposte.net>
>
[...]
>
>In my mind you make an excellent case for upgrading this application from upstream, and installing 
>under /opt, as you say you do already.
>Which I do for Mozilla Seamonkey, for example, because of relatively frequent updates.  (In that 
>case I also apply some personal patches, but that is another question.)
>It is appropriate to report bugs for the application upstream.  The fixes will trickle down to Mageia.
>Just because you use Mageia (or any other distro) doesn't mean you can't install 3rd party 
>applications.  Although certainly it is preferable that most are packaged in Mageia.
>
>Which brings up another point.  Considering your concern for the application, maybe you would like 
>to package it for Mageia.  You could ensure that it is always up to date, and that it works 
>properly, and is properly supported.  (The packager is a key player in support.)
>Just because it is called a backport doesn't mean that it won't work.
>The packager mentoring program will help you get started :)
>
>-- 
>André


Well, first of all, I never liked the _concept_ of backports. Too many repositories, too complex tree already. One of the reasons I wasn't very fond of Mandriva (the other reason being the IaOra theme(s).)

From the NON-rolling distros, Fedora is arguably the only one who tries to bring newer versions of a number of applications throughout its 12+1 months lifecycle. w/o using backports. My opinion is that, as long as system libraries are _not_ upgraded, many other packages (applications!) should be updated as appropriate. Otherwise, the result would be that Windows users would have more freedom and ease in decided what version of the [multi-platform open-source] applications to use than Linux users! (Except, of course, the users of rolling-release distros, and except for users of unstable/rawhide/cooker/cauldron...)

I know, I should probably be using Fedora as long as _some_ of their principles suit my views much more than Mageia does or than Mandriva did. However, Fedora lacks something like Mandriva Control Center, and yum is millions of times slower than urpmi, therefore...

Not to mention that most of the best people Mandriva had are now with Mageia, which makes this distro hard to ignore... (Je crois qu'on appelle cela zugzwang...)

R-C


R-C