Rolling release Fedora - fantastic idea

[Kevin Kofler]

Andrew Wyatt wrote:
> First, I think a rolling release Fedora is a fantastic idea.  I'm
> certain that it's possible, since I've been pulling packages from 15,
> 16, and Rawhide downstream to Fuduntu

You can make your fork of Fedora roll all you want, but please leave us in 
peace!

> which still has a lot of 14 left at it's core with much success.

Yikes! Are you SURE your fork is not full of unfixed security holes?

> Some potential reasons why it would be a good idea..  A lot of us don't
> like to risk a major upgrade every 6 months to a year, or reinstall.  We
> can always save a dump of rpms, and not format /home but still, that's a
> lot of unnecessary work.  If you aren't in a position to do a full
> backup (right or wrong) it becomes even more of a challenge.

You don't need a backup to do an upgrade. Sure, it's recommended, but an 
upgrade actually does not attack your data in any way. (A reinstall does if 
exercised poorly. But IMHO upgrades are the better option anyway. I 
personally like the direct yum method.)

> It's also very convenient to upgrade to Firefox 9 for example without
> having to go to Remi, or spend hours upgrading everything.

Firefox 9 was also pushed as an update for Fedora 15, which was the oldest 
Fedora release supported at the time of its release.

(It's time to get used to the fact that Fedora 14 is DEAD. If you're still 
shipping Fedora 14 packages to your users, YOU are responsible for 
backporting all the relevant security fixes!)

> If you were interested in going forward with a rolling release model,
> your community is large enough that it doesn't have to be your core
> product.  It could though be the foundation for your core product.

… which would mean older packages in our stable releases, because they'd 
first have to go through the rolling release, whereas currently we branch 
the stable releases directly from Rawhide.

It also neglects the fact that it's actually MORE work to prepare a major 
migration for a rolling release than to prepare it for a new release, where 
users are prepared for having to manually deal with migration issues and 
where they can decide to hold off upgrading until the warts are fixed. (And 
that's assuming that the migration issues can be solved in a way which makes 
it safe to push such a change as a routine update at all. IMHO, things like 
GNOME 3 won't ever qualify.) If such troublesome migrations didn't exist, 
you wouldn't still ship "a lot of 14" in your fork! So it'd be entirely 
counterproductive to require the changes in the rolling release first, and 
it'd hold back the progress of our regular releases.

> Rawhide IMHO is "rolling", but it's also very unstable, as you all well
> know.

And I think this cannot be "fixed".

> As for the comments about users upset that they suddenly get GNOME 3 via
> a rolling upgrade, that's a communications issue and also what spins and
> remixes are for.

So it's fine if I magically morph your Rolls Royce into a Trabant after 
putting some fine print on some web site "communicating" the change? ^^

In case you don't understand the comparison:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Motor_Cars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant

> That is my $.02.  I really hope to see Fedora go this route, but if
> Fedora decides to stick to the current release model (which is already
> excellent) those that want an RPM based rolling release are welcome to
> come help out at Fuduntu. :D

Good luck! ^^

        Kevin Kofler