EPEL repos to keep older RPMs to keep backward compatibility and open the road for more

[Gilles Dubreuil]

Hello,

The idea, which is probably not new or has been asked before, is about
having EPEL repos to behave like RHEL repos and keep RPMs version from
previous release/updates.

The best case scenario is for recent version of the programming
languages, but it could apply to many other packages.

Languages in particular have regular and important updates which are
released as stable version. There is no reason for EPEL to not benefit
from those.

But bringing more recent release potentially breaks backward
compatibility and therefore is not recommended by the Fedora/EPEL
package update policy.

Meanwhile if EPEL could keep older RPMs version like RHEL channels does,
then we could satisfy more people by offering various versions.

Does it make sense and is this doable?

Regards,
Gilles

[Dave Johansen]

On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 11:53 PM, Gilles Dubreuil  wrote:
> Hello,
>
> The idea, which is probably not new or has been asked before, is about
> having EPEL repos to behave like RHEL repos and keep RPMs version from
> previous release/updates.
>
> The best case scenario is for recent version of the programming
> languages, but it could apply to many other packages.
>
> Languages in particular have regular and important updates which are
> released as stable version. There is no reason for EPEL to not benefit
> from those.
>
> But bringing more recent release potentially breaks backward
> compatibility and therefore is not recommended by the Fedora/EPEL
> package update policy.
>
> Meanwhile if EPEL could keep older RPMs version like RHEL channels does,
> then we could satisfy more people by offering various versions.
>
> Does it make sense and is this doable?

I believe that COPR and/or SCL are much better fits for rolling out newer
versions of packages like this.