fedora mission (was Re: systemd and changes)

[Jeff Spaleta]

On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 7:39 AM, Jesse Keating <jkeating at j2solutions.net> wrote:
> An update that changes behavior for the end user would never be
> acceptable as an update to a stable release.  Only severe exceptions
> should be made to this rule, where the time/effort to backport the
> important fixes from a new upstream release are cost prohibitive and too
> complicated to do on our own.


Uhm... there are end-user applications under active development that
see monthly-ish updates that can include UI changes and bug fixes
together. In fact UI changes could be considered bugfixes. Are you
sure there is a bright line concerning changes to end-user observable
behavior?  I'm not.  Bugfixes can deliberately and purposefully change
behavior that some users are used to.

I'm a package maintainer for one such application. I have yet to hear
from a single user...ever..that tracking releases from upstream has
been unwanted for this specific application regardless of the UI
tweaks that happen between upstream releases.  In fact I have bug
reports to the contrary asking me to push newer versions because I
originally held back updates across a significant upstream version
boundary.

Am I going to be disallowed from tracking upstream's release schedule
for this particular application by providing monthlyish updates and
moving them through updates-testing into updates-released?


-jef