V Tue, Oct 04, 2022 at 10:17:34AM +0200, Germano Massullo napsal(a):
As I wrote in https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2129662#c11 I did not know that epel packages are used also in CentOS Stream, sometimes causing issues like the one previously mentioned.
In fact this behaviour obliges epel maintainers that wanted to maintain RHEL only, to work to maintain CentOS Stream too. This an additional source of troubles for package maintainers
I guess this strategy was selected https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/epel-devel@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/NH4CM6MAVUTUH35NDM53PTKCHODSEP6F/ because most EPEL packages keep working in CentOS Stream. Hence EPEL-next delivers only the few execptions which need a rebuild/patch.
Originally when RHEL 9 did not exist, EPEL-next was a completly separate repository, but EPEL maintainers were forgetting to build (and debug) for EPEL-next, hence EPEL-next became completely useless. Thus EPEL-next was repurposed as an overlay for EPEL.
While EPEL maintainers might see EPEL-next as a nuisance, they should realize that what's CentOS Stream now, will become RHEL in 6 months. If their EPEL package breaks in CentOS Stream now, it will become broken in RHEL in 6 months. Ignoring CentOS Stream only postpones an inevitable maintenance work. I think EPEL maintainers should rather perceive EPEL-next the same way as Fedora maintainers handle Rawhide.
The only problem is that there is no automatic move of EPEL-next packages to EPEL after the 6 months. A maintainer needs to repeat the work in EPEL and, if possible, to remove the unnecessary EPEL-next build manually https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/epel-devel@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/QMVRM4MQM4DHWUEUN65YYNU7UJADAT6Z/#MU4LXGKDUQCKKFET22J36GKLY4UFKIT2.
-- Petr