Proposed udpates policy change

[Martin Langhoff]

On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 6:31 PM, Toshio Kuratomi <a.badger at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 3) Sufficient testing of software inherently requires manual
>> intervention by more than one individual.
>>
> This isn't entirely true either.

#3 is so true that is central to what distros are about. Upstream
probably released a good updated version, but the distro role is to do
the integration, and shake out all the bugs in those subtle
interactions between components.

Otherwise, distros could provide the installer + @base and for the
rest we could all grab RPMs from upstreams' websites.

The QA of the integrated set of packages at particular release is hard
and complex. That's what Fedora does, as a distro, and is central to
what Fedora is, and the implicit social contract -- these components
perform together in tune like a well-rehearsed orchestra.

If the trombonist buys a new and shiny trombone, great, but for the
piece he's playing tonight he'll have to play with the old trombone.
The new trombone may be slightly out of tune, or louder, or tinnier;
none of those things are bad per se, but it will ruin the combined
effort.

> One person can manually evaluate

That's the "it works for me" attitude. Works for small software
projects with a couple users. Not for a hugely complex OS, one that
others use as the base for their own work.

cheers,



m
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