Michael scherer a écrit :
On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 08:23:59PM +0200, Thomas Backlund wrote:
Jerome Quelin skrev 27.11.2010 19:11:
On 10/11/27 17:59 +0100, Maarten Vanraes wrote:
what are the rules to move a package from extra to core, and vice-versa?
who can do it? will it be done automatically? will this imply a rebuild
for the package?
If a maintainer picks up maintainership of a package in /extra/ it will
be rebuilt and moved to /core/ asap.
if a package in /core/ ends up nomaintainer@, then after a "grace
period" (1-3 months ?) it will be moved to /extra/.
and sometime before RC1 or so, any momaintainer@ package in /core/
will get moved to /extra/ as for a release the /core/ should only
contain maintained packages.
But isn't it in contradiction with the fact that release should not be changed ?
IE, a package could be in core for one release, and extras in another.
What happen to such shrodingerian packages ?
What happen if this break the self containement ?
And finally, isn't it redoing contribs/main , leading in the future to the same
problem we tried to avoid ?
It's simply not workable to base a package's repository on whether it is
currently maintained or not.
It is much better to classify it on whether it *should* be maintained,
in order to have a fully functional user's system.
That is, it is in core because it is *core* to a typical fully
functional desktop or server or developer's system. Or very useful to
such a system.
So if such a package is not being properly maintained, there is a
collective focus to make sure that it is maintained, so that user's
systems remain functional.
Extra should be just that. Packages that are extra to a fully
functional core Mageia system.
It is inevitable that most packages, whatever their importance, will be
unmaintained - or at least without an official maintainer - from time to
time.
What we don't want to happen is a repository yoyo - where a package
bounces from core to main and back - just on the basis of its current
maintenance status.
And a package should *never* change repositories between releases.
what are the dependency rules? can a core package depend on an extra
package? or with a buildrequires?
No.
If you need to build against a package in /extra/, either pick up
the maintainership of it, or try to get someone other to maintain
it.
then it can get into /core/
Seems like a lot of wasted effort - which could be better applied simply
maintaining core packages.
And so, if no one step, wouldn't it be like current mdv, where people will say
they maintain the package just because someone has to do the job ?
Note that Mandriva is currently overhauling their system - to remove
much non-core packages from main.
and, more importantly: what is the advantage? that is, what does that
bring you, except more admin?
QA!
and enduser satisfaction.
Just take a look on many bugreports in MDV Bugzilla.
If the report is against a nomaintainer@ package, currently Triage
pretty much only can state "thanks for your report, but since it has
no maintainer, nothing will probably happend" wich is not good answer
for a person that have taken the time to report a bug.
Then why don't we either :
- decide that non maintened package must be taken care by trainee, as
part of the training
- decide to clean them.
Exactly.
By having the /extra/ disabled by default, and a popup notifying the
user if he enables it that the packages are "unmaintained" he knows
he's "on his own"
That's ridiculous. We should be in the cooperative spirit of the GPL,
instead of saying "too bad, you can't depend on Mageia."
That's already what the GPL say, basically :)
( you have no garantee of anything ).
But no garantee doesn't mean no help.
Yet, I fail to see what benefit it does really bring to users. Most of them
will enable the media ( because some people enable everything ), will forget
the message ( because we always forget popup, thanks
to endless abuse of such popup ),
and the only benefit is that we could tell "we told you". Not really satisfying,
and if I was a user, it would not really please me, nor inspire confidence.
We could avoid adding a media by merging this media with core,
and show the popup when a user install a package without maintainer,
telling either "beware, this package is currently marked as not maintained, and
may
be buggy. We will try to do what we can to help in this case, but no one is
officialy in charge"
or "we are seeking help on taking care of this package, if you use it often,
please
register on $URL"
Not a bad idea. Why not both messages ?
Really better than an option to exclude seeing officially non-maintained
packages.
Some packages on my system work perfectly well, but haven't been
"maintained" for several years.
I would still keep a separate core and extra, where core is core, and
extra is extra.
(As I described above and in more detail in previous posts to this thread.)
- André
