Stable Release Updates types proposal (was Re: Fedora Board Meeting Recap 2010-03-11)

[Andy Green]

On 03/12/10 14:01, Somebody in the thread at some point said:
> On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 12:23:58PM +0000, Andy Green wrote:
>
>> However I agree this isn't a real issue, the packages with the homegrown
>> apps should choke the yum update because they see the lib versions they
>> depend on would go away, so nothing breaks.
>
> Only if they're using the packaging system. While in an ideal world
> everything would be packaged in Fedora, the reality is that there's
> plenty of code that isn't, and users do do things like download stuff

Then that's the person's problem who is using a packaged OS outside the 
packaging system: he can expect nothing but headaches being in stealth mode.

It seems we all agree though that it's true the update action will choke 
if there are packages around that need the old libs and that's OK for 
that scenario.

> and run ./configure; make; make install. The ones who are least likely
> to know how to generate packages are the ones who are most likely to be
> confused by applications suddenly breaking because of a soname bump, and
> they're the ones who are going to be wary of running *any* updates
> because they tend to break stuff for them.

That is what will happen when they upgrade to fc(n+1) anyway.  And these 
guys have to know enough usually to yum in a load of -devel pieces.

All that guy has to do is re-run make ; make install after the update 
and he's away again.  That does not sound very onerous.  If there's a 
big gain to be had in terms of solving impossible backport situations 
then it sounds like a tradeoff that's at the least reasonable to argue.

-Andy