On Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 9:58 AM, Adam Williamson <adamwill@fedoraproject.org> wrote:
On Wed, 2017-10-11 at 07:53 -0700, Gerald B. Cox wrote:
<snip>
> Martin, this is what is stated at the very top of the doc you referenced:
> "The *updates-testing* repository
<snip>

It's worth noting that page isn't really a policy page, it's just an
'informational' page. It's not officially maintained by anyone in
control of the update process, or anything. The text was probably just
written by a single person, describing the process as they understand
it (it may well have been me). I wouldn't rely excessively strongly on
a literal reading of the text as if it were the word of law.

That's fine, but Martin referenced it and I just pointed out the plain reading -
which is updates there are intended to be pushed to stable. 
 

The main official policy page regarding updates is:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Updates_Policy

that page *is* locked to drive-by edits and *is* controlled by (IIRC)
FESCo in their role as maintainers of the update process. It doesn't
really have any rules, right now, about how updates-testing is to be
used, but this seems like an omission.

I agree, if that page is the policy, it is an omission and needs to be corrected.
 

FWIW, my own belief is similar to yours and sgallagh's: updates-testing
is really only intended for packages you believe there is at least a
decent chance will be ready to be pushed stable. It's not really
intended for sending out packages you have no intention of pushing
stable. But this does seem to be a slightly unusual case, at least
reading between the lines. Perhaps if Firefox 57 is a sufficiently
significant update that it needs special handling, exactly how this is
to be done (for all supported releases) should be discussed and
arranged with FPC and/or FESCo?
 

Well, the problem is that in Fx 57 many extensions will stop working.  A few extensions which I
use have been modified in the last few days, and many others probably won't be released until
the last minute.  Many people have updates-testing enabled automatically to tests and report on
software.  They aren't expected BETA software to be there.  That is the point.  Software
that is not intended to be pushed to STABLE belongs in RAWHIDE.  While apparently it isn't written officially
anywhere doesn't mean that people should start using updates-testing in that manner.  As I mentioned
above, if that is the case, why do we need RAWHIDE.

As far as Fx 57 being a special case, it isn't.  In fact, if anything due to the extension breakage it should be
handled with an abundance of caution - which means don't do anything which would case someone to
accidentally install it.

It's extremely easy to install Fx from RAWHIDE by using koji.  There is no reason to put it in updates-testing.

This is just sending the wrong message and inviting people to start populating updates-testing with RAWHIDE software -
and I can't imagine why anyone would want that.