Worthless updates

[Kevin Kofler]

Chris Adams wrote:
> Some packagers are turning Fedora into a rolling-update package
> collection instead of a coherent distribution.

[snip]

> If Fedora is going to be a rolling update package collection (despite
> what Kevin tries to claim about some mythical "semi-rolling", that's
> what we are getting in some quarters)

Nonsense.

Fedora stable releases are NOT a rolling release. Rawhide is one. Compare 
the package versions in stable and Rawhide and see the differences for 
yourself.

Some examples from KDE SIG because that's what I'm most familiar with: 
KOffice 2 and KDevelop 4 are intentionally NOT being pushed as updates to 
Fedora 12 due to their disruptive nature. (They're very different from 
KOffice 1 resp. KDevelop 3.) Rawhide on the other hand has them (and in fact 
it already carried KOffice 2 twice in previous cycles when we were planning 
to ship it in the respective next release, but then decided to revert to 
KOffice 1) and Fedora 13 will have them. We also haven't pushed the KDE 4 
K3b as an update to Fedora 12, Rawhide already has it and Fedora 13 will 
carry it (though in that case I cannot categorically exclude that an update 
to Fedora 12 will be pushed at a later time, it all depends on whether there 
are regressions, we aren't going to push a new version if it comes with 
feature regressions or known new bugs).

> then stop the releases every 6 months.  There's no point; put a little
> more effort into the respins instead and release those every 4-6 months as
> point releases.  Have an annual roll-up release and then keep rolling.

Therefore, that suggestion would not work as well as the status quo.

        Kevin Kofler