On Sat, 28 Oct 2006 22:54:41 +0200, Gianluca Sforna wrote: > > Theoretically, the maintainers of the packages know best as to how > > stable the software they are packaging is, what the timeline for said > > beta is to reach production, etc. If another maintainer questions this, > > then open a bug report against the package explaining > > I agree. It's not FESCO's call to decide if a given package is OK even if beta. Almost funny, given that we don't do any mandatory run-time testing during the review process. It's not that easy to say "packagers know best". If that were the case, we could kill the reviewing. The question is whether we want to open the flood-gates by setting precedence and letting in many other pre-release versions, effectively moving closer to the bleeding edge? When some people ask whether anything is wrong with a beta, it is equally valid to ask what's wrong with the last official stable release? Where are the answers to both questions? > > That being said, my personal opinion is that "beta" or pre-release > > packages should only be done in the devel branch, and only if that beta > > has a really good chance of becoming an actual release before the devel > > branch is forked for the next Extras release. > > This seems sane, and IMHO could be formalized in the packaging > guidelines, at least as a SHOULD item. I'd rather be more rigorous and require packagers and reviewers to explain why a pre-release version or VCS snapshot is preferred over a stable release. This ought to be part of the approval process and also be required during package maintenance. It would not be the first time somebody wanted to package a beta release way too early and without good reason. One example from the top of my head is Audacity. It even segfaulted reproducibly when built without mp3 support. Back in time, where did most repository mixing problems come from? Correct. Not just from providing the same packages in different repositories. Packaging conflicting ABIs and APIs lead to the most repo mixing problems. > Axel made clear he was not seeking for any kind of "preference" for > its own repo. > > However, he raised another interesting topic, stating that he felt the > package was "blitz reviewed": Do you disagree? I don't. Less than 24 hours between a sudden upgrade to a beta version and its approval. Plus the worst fact: The other packages in the dependency-chain are not ready yet. -- fedora-extras-list mailing list fedora-extras-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-extras-list
