Re: Policy on supporting old and external software packages and compat RPMS

Stephen Smoogen <ssmoogen@xxxxxxxxxx> · Mon, 5 Dec 2022 06:54:14 -0500

On Mon, 5 Dec 2022 at 06:45, Terry Barnaby <terry1@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

    Hi,
    With the latest release of Fedora37 we were hit with an issue
      where the ncurses-compat-libs RPM had
          been depreciated. Due to this some of the tools we use would
          no longer install from their respective RPM's or their tar
          based installs would not run as they needed the
          libncurses*5.so shared libraries.

    We use a number of software
          packages for Electronics and Software development, some of
          which are developed by organisations and companies outside of
          Fedora. This includes things like ARM GCC compilers, FPGA
          compilers, PCB tools, manufacturers utilities etc. Many of
          these are built for Redhat7, being a good general and stable
          base Linux system for these companies/organisations to target.
          There are a few shared libraries that are commonly used and
          ncurses is one of these.

    I am wondering what Fedora's
          policy is on depreciated old shared libraries and particularly
          compat RPM's ?

The policy is that if there are packagers who are actively going to be able to maintain the code, AND the code can be built with the current tools in the build system, it is kept. If the packagers want it but the code can't be built, then it is removed. If the packagers don't want it but the code could still be built, it is still removed. 

Sometimes the packager isn't willing anymore because they don't need it anymore in their work. Other times it is because they asked on a list and no one answered. Or a dozen other reasons.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 is reaching its EOL in 1 year and 29 weeks. Getting code to compile for it on newer OS's is harder and packagers volunteer time is limited. 

If there isn't one, for the
          benefit of users and making Fedora OS more generally useful,
          can I suggest that relatively often used compat RPMS are kept
          available at least while a major base system such as Redhat7
          is still widely used as a build platform for external
          companies/organisations and/or perhaps for at least 15? years
          (or some defined time) after they become compat RPM's ?

    Terry

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-- 
Stephen Smoogen, Red Hat Automotive
Let us be kind to one another, for most of us are fighting a hard battle. -- Ian MacClaren

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