On Wed, 6 Oct 2010 12:50:00 -0600 Kevin Fenzi wrote: > On Wed, 29 Sep 2010 09:19:08 +0200 > Michal Schmidt <mschmidt@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > In the policy I do not see as clear distinction between F(n) > > (current stable) and F(n-1) (old stable) as Jaroslav proposes. The > > closest to it is this sentence: > > The update rate for any given release should drop off over time, > > approaching zero near release end-of-life. > > The wording suggests a continuous rate of change which is weird and > > hard to get right. > > > > An explicit distinction between F(n) and F(n-1) would make sense for > > at least these reasons: > > - Many users of F(n) desire current versions of end-user software > > in updates (of course given that it gets tested sufficiently > > before being pushed there and that the new version is not a > > revolutionary change since the previous version). > > - Some users intentionally install F(n-1) only after F(n) is > > released, believing it to be more stable and more conservative about > > updates (important fixes only) than F(n). I guess this is intuitive > > to users. > > - F(n)-updates-testing usually has a reasonable amount of users, > > but much fewer people use F(n-1)-updates-testing. > > How would you suggest wording this? The above is what people might > expect from a F(n-1), but what policy would match these goals? > > ie, how can we explain how F(n-1) is different from F(n) for > maintainers? What updates should be in one and not the other? The idea is to relax the restrictions on updates to F(n) a bit, while keeping very strict rules for F(n-1). Updates to any release must NOT: - change API, ABI - change data or configuration formats - change the GUI in a major way - change command-line options incompatibly - remove any features (Exceptions to these rules will granted only if fixing a security or data loss bug would be impossible otherwise.) Given the restrictions above, updates to F(n) are allowed to: - rebase to new upstream releases - add new features - make minor user interface changes - fix bugs Updates to F(n-1) are ONLY allowed to: - fix bugs - the complete list of which must be included in the update description; the update must not change anything else. - cherry-picking of patches may be necessary Michal -- devel mailing list devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel