If a Fedora package update is released, and then another update is
released, I don't think that the first remains available under current
operating procedures.
I think that it would be useful to keep the package available.
I just experienced a case where I needed this. xorg-x11-drv-ati was
upgraded to xorg-x11-drv-ati-6.9.0-63.fc10.x86_64 in December and then
upgraded to xorg-x11-drv-ati-6.10.0-1.fc10.x86_64 recently.
xorg-x11-drv-ati-6.10.0-1.fc10.x86_64 does not work on my system. So
I needed to downgrade to xorg-x11-drv-ati-6.9.0-63.fc10.x86_64.
As far as I know, there is no distribution point for
xorg-x11-drv-ati-6.9.0-63.fc10.x86_64. Luckily, I found it on a
mirror that had gone stale.
I think that there should be an official site that preserves all
released updates, not just the current ones.
I also wonder if there is some provision of the GPL that requires at
least the source files of obsoleted updates to remain available. The
wording of the GPL isn't really clear on this matter, but here is a
possibly suggestive extract from "COPYING" (GPL V2):
3
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange; or,
--
fedora-devel-list mailing list
fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
