fedora mission (was Re: systemd and changes)

[Thomas Moschny]

2010/8/31 Jesse Keating <jkeating at j2solutions.net>:
> 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.

An update that does not change behavior for the end user is ... not meaningful.

Any update changes something, otherwise it would not have been issued.
And sometimes it is not at all clear if that change is welcome or not.
A bug fix might be in most cases, but could also mean some work to the
"end user" as well, like removing a workaround.

We should accept that people have different expectations, and draw
different lines in the trade of getting new bug fixes and new features
vs. coping with breakage and changed behavior. People might even have
different expectations from package to package. If we decide to draw
that line at a fixed point, distribution-wide, we'll lose people,
inevitably. So lets try to come up with ideas how to satisfy both (or
even more than two) needs. Making categories (critical packages vs.
non-critical packages) is a good step in the right direction, as well
as more than one repository. If there are issues the build system or
the packaging tools cannot handle, good, that is a technical problem
and can be solved. We're not here for politics, are we?

- Thomas