[Mageia-dev] Update of backport, policy proposal

[Wolfgang Bornath]

2011/6/26 Michael Scherer <misc at zarb.org>:
> Le dimanche 26 juin 2011 à 11:58 +0300, atilla ontas a écrit :
>> 2011/6/26 Wolfgang Bornath <molch.b at googlemail.com>:
>> > A short reality check from userside:
>> >
>> > If foo-1.0 is in Mageia 1 and foo-1.1 is released upstream
>> >  - foo-1.1 will likely be integrated in Cauldron very soon after
>> >  - users will request to have foo-1.1 in Mageia 1
>> >  - if Mageia will not provide it then there will soon be local
>> > repositories where local packagers will do a "backport" for their
>> > friends.
>> >
>> > This may not be what Mageia backport policy will allow but we can not
>> > avoid people doing and using this, no matter how many warning signs we
>> > will publish. This has to be taken into account here.
>> >
>> > When a policy is found it has to be communicated very well, especially
>> > if that policy means that the user can not have foo-1.1 in his stable
>> > Mageia 1.
>> >
>> > This is important because former Mandriva users were used to get
>> > almost all new versions backported, if not officially then in 3rd
>> > party repos like MIB or MUD.
>> >
>> > --
>> > wobo
>> >
>
>> As wobo mentioned, people like latest and greatest software. I think,
>> except a few users will use unofficial 3rd party repos to get latest
>> software. While i was maintaining MVT (Mandriva Turkiye) repository,
>> our users asked for GNOME 2.32 while Mandriva have GNOME 2.30 on
>> official release.
>
> And others people mentioned that people want also stable software and do
> not want changes. But as I said, what people want is not as important
> than what we can do, and so the decision is in the end of those that do
> the work rather than what people want, because if no one does the work,
> nothing happen.

Well, in principle this is correct, not in this case as I have
explained as a very common example. You can decide whatever you want,
if a user wants a certain package and his friend will pack it for him
and puts it up on a server, publishing the existence - then you will
see what happens. You know by experience how popular such 3rd-party
repos can become (see MIB, MUD), just because somebody had a different
view than the official view.
In short: no matter what is more important or not, you have to find a
compromise between the (understandable) search for optimal workflow,
security on one side and the real world of the users on the other. I
think, the key here is non-technical communication of the
circumstances, like "why we can't have foo 1.2 as backport from
Cauldron to Mageia 1".

-- 
wobo