On Fri, Sep 11, 2020 at 10:16:02AM +0200, Mikolaj Izdebski wrote:
> You get a side tag in Koji where you can have private build-only
> dependencies that are discarded (filtered) once they are no longer
> needed, after module build is done. For build-only packages most of
> security vulnerabilities are not exploitable easily, or at all,
> therefore are low-severity, which greatly limits maintenance work
> required to address them. For example, if upstream tests are ran on an
> obsolete, 12-years old version of Tomcat, I don't need to skip tests,
> but I can package old Tomcat and run the tests.
Whoha! Let's step back for a minute and look at this example.
What are the reasons to run tests? To make sure the package will run
correctly..
Why run tests on 12-years old version instead of on current one?
Probably because tests fail on current version?
Will the end user run the package on obsolete Tomcat or on the current one?
Of course on the current one. The one on which tests fail.
Tests in this case are worthless, they are not testing the real
situation. Disabling tests is no worse than testing on obsolete version.
Relying on such tests is a disservice for the end user.
The point of testing is to validate code in real situation.
Crafting special, unrealistic environment (12 years old Tomcat) just to have
test pass is missing the point of tests.
Well, you do realize how much not feasible it is for the Fedora maintainer of hundred packages to go out and not only fix the builds, bugs, CVEs and etc. but even the tests for all these packages. The unrealistic expectations for what package maintainer should do is really not helping growing that number.
--
Tomasz Torcz There exists no separation between gods and men:
tomek@pipebreaker.pl one blends softly casual into the other. — Frank Herbert
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