2011/6/26 Wolfgang Bornath <molc...@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 > Hi. I'm following this threat from the very beginning. While reading, i feel i'm reading a Mandriva Cooker mailing list posts. As a community distro, why Mageia developers still think like a Mandriva employee? Why backports and why so many policies, like a commercial enterprise distro? I mean, Mageia do not have paid developers to work on packages all the time. Also Mageia do not have so many packagers like Fedora or Ubuntu, So, why make so many things so hard?
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. Personally i always hate the backports structure and policy. It confuses minds. Why Mageia need a backports repo, i really do not understand. Stability and bug free releases are of course a must. But it needs developers dedicated to work, almost paid developers. If a software do not related with core system, like vlc, it should included updates repo. Let upstream fix bugs and security issues. If a packager catchs a bug he should send a patch to upstream and wait for a new release. Otherwise, it is not packaging it is coding, which many potential packgers will avoid to contribute. Look at Debian and Arch Linux who haven't any paid developers but community distros. Stable Debian releases provide software from a century ago for the sake of stability. Arch provides latest software including core system and occaionally have breakages. I think Mageia should be between two of them. Release latest software in updates for non core system and libs, keep core system stable. Remove this backports thingy. My 2 cents...