[Mageia-dev] Proposal of a backporting process

[Michael Scherer]

Hi,

as said in the thread of firefox 5, and in the meeting of packager
sooner this week, this is the first mail about backports ( on 3 ).

So here is the proposal of a process, based on the feedback of people,
and the idea of some packagers ( mainly stormi ).


- Someone request a backport ( by bugzilla, by madb, by a email, by
taking a packager family in hostage, whatever ). I would prefer use
bugzilla but this may not be very user friendly, or too heavy.

- a packager decide to do it. Based on the policy ( outlined in another
mail ), and maybe seeing with the maintainer first about that for non
trivial applications, the backport can be done, or not. The criterias
for being backported or not are not important to the process, just
assume that they exist for now ( and look at next mail ). So based on
criteria, someone say "it can be backported, so I do it".

- I am not sure on this part, but basically, we have 2 choices :
  - the packager take the cauldron package and push to backport testing
  - the packager move the cauldron package in svn to backport, and there
send it to backport testing. 

Proposal 1 mean less work duplication, but proposal 2 let us do more
customization.

if the package doesn't build, the packager fix ( or drop the idea if
this requires too much work )

- the packager send requesting feedback about the backport from the
people who requested it, and test it as well.
 
- based on feedback ( ie if the package work or if the packager is
confident ), the packager decide to move it to backport for everybody,
using some stuff similar to rpmctl ( the tool we used to move package at
Mandriva ). The tool would also send notifications.

- if the package doesn't work, he either fix, or drop the backport idea.
If he fix, we go back on testing, if he drop, we remove the rpm ( with a
automated cleaning of rpm after 1 or 2 months ).

If the packager drop the backport, it should be notified to the
requester ( hence the use of bugzilla, or a more suitable tool )

This way :
- packages are not sent untested, thus raising confidence in backports
- the QA should not be overloaded, and can focus on updates
- sysadmins are not overloaded 
- people requesting backport see how QA work, and are involved into the
distribution as testers, thus creating a much healthier discussion with
packagers, and creating more incentive to help. And since they request
the package, they will be motivated to test more than stuff they do not
use.

WDYT ?

-- 
Michael Scherer