Richi Plana writes:
On Fri, 2007-12-28 at 11:52 +0000, Andrew Haley wrote:
> dragonauta x writes:
> > I give up...
> > (to resume: moto4lin doesn't work well with +2 drives,
but SVN
> > version does)
> > This is what I got on bugzilla:
> > "I'm sorry, but this is still an upstream issue.
The fact
> > that the upstream author has a patch that fixes this problem
> > but is not releasing it in an official release does not make
> > this a packaging issues, IMHO.
> >
> > It is my position that bugs like this need to be fixed by an
> > upstream release, particularly in cases like this. Because
> > upstream fixes help all distributions, and Fedora,
> > effectively, forking it does not.
> >
> > I don't believe it is Fedora's place to be tracking svn. Does
> > the upstream maintainer have a good reason for not having a
> > real release that fixes this?
> >
> > If someone from fedora-devel thinks this should be tracking
> > SVN, they should re-open this and take assignment on the bug."
> >
> > Thanks anyway.
>
> I don't get it. Where's the problem? Upstream refuses to
> produce an update?
Please don't oversimplify the issue. Just because upstream refuses, for
whatever reason, to come up with a release doesn't mean packagers should
refuse to package up a copy from VCS, particularly if it's been made
reproducible.
I dunno. That sounds like a very good reason to me. Otherwise Fedora
would have to maintain a fork, which really isn't a good plan. It
isn't the job of a Fedora packager to maintain a fork.
If it's really so important to get this fixed, it needs to be fixed
across all distros. If there hasn't been a release for three years,
the package needs to be orphaned or someone who cares needs to start
maintaining a fork that can become the new upstream.
Upstream has their own agenda and packagers carry a bigger
responsibility to the PACKAGE'S USERS. If the packager doesn't want
to do the extra work, then say so, and hopefully a comaintainer
will package it. But don't refuse it on principle.
The fact remains that there is a fix and upstream isn't making
it
difficult at all to package. So why drag one's feet? If this were a
trivial patch (cosmetic), I'd understand the reluctance. But bugs
which break normal functionality I consider pretty up there.
I think we need to know why upstream is not packaging this fix in an
official release.
Andrew.
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