On Tue, 5 Apr 2005 17:37:05 -0400, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > > > 1. Much smaller audience (lots of people do install everything in > > > core, but not so with extras today) > > > > Moot point, as laziness is the primary reason why Joe User chooses an > > everything-install in the fear that manual selection of packages would be > > to complicated or time consuming. Despite the availability of tools like > > Yum, it's still considered too inconvenient to add missing pieces after > > installation (and system-config-packages is a dead end with regard to > > adding software to an up-to-date FC). And do those people only install > > everything, or do they also use everything? Where is the benefit of users > > who install everything but use only a fraction of the packages? For most > > of the Extras users it makes no sense to install every package from > > Extras. > > Care to cite some research showing it's just lazyness? Watch users in relevant message boards. Even the rather simple group based software chooser is seen as being overwhelming and raises questions such as "do I need this" and "do I need that" or "does a minimal installation include A and B"? It's personal experience that users hate an installation where after the first reboot some software is still missing. > My laptop is often without any sort of internet connection. An > everything install has saved my butt multiple times. Not everyone is > able to be tied to a fast internet connection, and not everyone who > can be are at all times. That does not explain why you installed _everything_ onto your laptop. > An everything install still lets us now if the install of a package > blows up the system in some indirect way, even if the user never uses > it. For instance? > > > 2. More difficult distribution model (if someone burns me the DVD ISO > > > redhat provides it has all of core, but none of extras) > > > > Does the same "someone" also burn complete Fedora Core Updates onto a > > separate DVD? That could also be done with a mirrored snapshot of Fedora > > Extras today. But as pointed out above, Joe User most likely doesn't want > > another DVD of packages from which to use only a few. > > Considering the number of times I've been asked to burn a disk with > updates here for the small group of users I've adopted in my area (all > of who probably have good internet access), I think you're missing > something here. No, I've proven that either the users have good Internet access and don't need packages offline on CD/DVD or you are perfectly able to fetch and burn FC Updates onto CD/DVD, but you don't like to do the same with Extras. ;) > I'd be willing to help maintain packages that I don't give a > hoot about because I know other people (without the ability to fix > them) need them... But I can't do that for all of Extras, because it > tends to include many many things that very few people care about. A > smaller subset of 'things we think matter' would be fun to contribute > to maintaining. You are not supposed to take care of several hundreds of extra packages yourself. Contribute where you like to help and where you think help is needed and beneficial. > > > 4. Almost no build synchronization. When is a package in extras > > > guaranteed to build on a new version of FC? ... Never. > > > > Bad. Unless I'm misinformed, hopefully we still plan to have FC4 Extras > > ready together with the release of FC4 or shortly after. For that we would > > need a mass rebuild at least for FC4 Test3, though, to catch remaining > > packages which don't compile or fail at run-time and which have not been > > checked by their owners due to lack of a Rawhide or FC4 Test installation. > > I also think there are a very few package owners still missing. > > Well it's not the case today, ... and it hasn't been the case historically. Hmm? With a few exceptions, fedora.us had all of FC2 (and older) Extras rebuilt for the last test release and was ready when a FC release was made. Only with FC3 and the transition period to Fedora Extras, delays were introduced. We'll see how things will develop with FC4. (Obviously, in cases of illegal use of private library interfaces, a package breaks badly and sometimes can only be fixed if the upstream project catches up with API changes.) > > Fedora Extras Development is used to prepare packages for FCn+1, > > currently. And once more, a user, who _depends on a package_, should > > invest some time in making sure the package does work in FCn and continues > > to work in FCn+1. > > But do we only maintain packages for people with the time and skills > to do it themselves? No. Packages have a maintainer (let us ignore the differences between a "package maintainer" and a "packager" in this context) and should just work. The thing we're seeing in this thread, however, are presumptions with regard to quality of packages in Extras compared with packages in Core. Hence what I'm trying to make clear is, that if a user depends badly on a package (as if it were mission-critical usage), he should follow its development closely, preferably not just in the distribution but also upstream, as to not rely on "unknown package developers". > I advocate a subset of things that we, as a > community, will commit to supporting for other people even if very few > people are directly committed to the member packages of that set. Define "support" here. > > > Perhaps a solution would be to define a subset of extras that belong > > > to a set of more stable/more important. > > > > Start with a set of packages which you think are not stable or not good > > enough. File a bug report for each package. > > Fair enough, but it doesn't correct the systemic lack of polish found > in out-of-core packages. Again, file bug reports about any "lack of polish" you find. Thank you in advance.