Thanks to everyone who helped clarify the situation today.
Redhat developers bumping useful packages out of Core are giving
the impression that Extras are just a yum away. This is false
but Redhat developers may not yet be aware that this is false.
Extras lag in being rebuilt to match Core. Real world testing of
Extras is not possible until much later in the cycle, if at all.
Extras quality obviously suffers, but that's not all.
Core also gets less real world testing, because it's not possible
to upgrade as many systems to test releases until the Extras come
along. Thus the artificial partition also hurts Core quality.
Creating a separate Extras environment is counter-productive.
Extras should be as close as possible to Core in order to benefit
from synergies and existing tools and to improve coordination.
Extras should be first class packages in the same environment
and using the same tools as Core. Maintainer access controls
would apply, and dependency checks to ensure that Core is
self-contained. The key differences would be but two:
(1) Core CD's would be available without Extras CD's.
(2) Extras packages should have varying but clearly
specified degrees of testing, perhaps in three tiers:
Gold - As good as Core but not shipped with Core.
Silver - Rebuilt and tested in coordination with Core.
Bronze - Rebuilt with core but QA has not signed off.
--Mike Bird