Package Maintainers Flags policy

Denis Leroy denis at poolshark.org
Wed May 20 09:08:09 UTC 2009


On 05/20/2009 10:32 AM, Ewan Mac Mahon wrote:
> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 09:20:36AM +0200, Denis Leroy wrote:
>> On 05/18/2009 05:09 PM, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
>>> In FESCo's 2009-03-28 meeting a policy on Flag usage for packages in
>>> Fedora was approved.
>>>
>>> Due to an oversight, this policy was not announced here. ;(
>>>
>>> Please see:
>>>
>>> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Package_Maintainers_Flags_Policy
>>>
>>> and direct any comments to FESCo in a ticket or via the devel list.
>> Could we have the FESCO meeting IRC log please.
>>
> It would appear to be originally discussed here:
>   http://bpepple.fedorapeople.org/fesco/FESCo-2009-03-20.html
> where some concerns (including FreeCiv, in fact) were raised, then it
> was approved here:
>   http://bpepple.fedorapeople.org/fesco/FESCo-2009-03-27.html

Thanks Ewan,

To summarize the votes:

Dennis Gilmore: +1
David Woodhouse: +1
Bill Nottingham: +1
Jon Stanley: +1
Dan Horak: +1
Kevin Fenzi: +1

The logs include some pearls, like this one:

nirik:ok. I'm unclear what problem this is solving off hand...
jds2001: So reading this, it appears that this came from legal. I'm fine 
with this policy.
nirik: ok, if it's legal I'm fine with it...

Nobody is even questioning whether the policy is worth the effort, since 
people think this is mandated by Legal. No debate about the proposal 
consequences and impact over Fedora packagers. No clear definition about 
"there are some flags we can't ship to certain places" and what that 
actually means technically. What, you're going to block download 
requests coming from the PRC ? What about mirrors ? No debate about how 
the RPM split has zero impact over this anyways, and how the 
"substantively essential" clause bypasses this also. Not even an attempt 
to identify the list of affected packages.

Of those 6, only 2 commented on this thread, and only 1 admitted this 
could have been communicated/handled better (and he gets my respect). I 
can only fear the other 4 do not read this mailing list.

Frankly, this is the worst FeSCo we have had in years, and I'd like 
those people to resign immediately from FeSCo and early elections to 
take place.




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