[Mageia-dev] Update of backport, policy proposal

[Radu-Cristian FOTESCU]

>Someone install version 1.0 from release. So far, so good, but he hear
>that 1.1 is out, and he install it from backport ( after requesting ).
>He is satisfied, then the developers of our voip software decide to
>create a version 2.0, with a completely new interface but the ui is yet
>unfinished and untranslated, so our user cannot use it. Yet, someone
>request a backport, and let's assume we do it.
>
>With our current scheme, our user will not be affected and he doesn't
>want to upgrade. So he keep the version 1.1.
>
>A security issue is discovered, in 1.X and 2.X. 
>
>1.0-2 is sent to release update, with security fix.
>2.1 is sent to backport, as the packager follow the list.
>
>What should be done for the user :
>Force upgrade to the next major release ? 
>Ask him to revert to release update ? 
>Tell him "this is not supported" ?
>
>Or maybe we should not have upgraded to 2.0 if we knew that current user
>would refuse it ?



This is exactly why I am against backports. If I am not wrong, Fedora would have pushed 1.1, and therefore 1.1-2 into the regular updates, and 2.0 and therefore 2.1 would rather qualify for the next release of the distro. 


Of course, another possibility would be to have in backports (or in the regular updates) both mypackage-1.1-2 and mypackage2-2.1-1. Major updates (such as from 1.x to 2.x) would probably ask for changing the base name of the package, so that different versions could coexist in the repo.

I really believe that Linux distro maintainers are too narrow-minded. Maybe version 1.1.x of a package brings very few changes against 1.0.x. At the same time, version 1.0.20 of some other package might bring disruptive changes as compared to 1.0.19. It all depends of the upstream developer! So this should be a case-by-case analysis of what can be updated and what must be backported -- because I see that Mandriva's tradition of backporting is going to last in Mageia too.

Think of Firefox 5.0. It's rather a 4.0.2. So f* with the version number, check rather the importance of the actual changes in the software!

Cheers,
R-C aka beranger