Adventurous updates? (was: Re: Stable Release Updates types proposal)

[Kevin Kofler]

Michael Schwendt wrote:
> Right, not a spokesman for FESCo, but still a community representative,
> elected by parts of the community. Whether you fight solely for yourself
> or whether you believe you act on behalf of the community, isn't obvious.

Well, it's really both:
* I am personally in favor of non-conservative updates.
* I believe I am also representing a huge portion of the community 
(including the actual users), also in the light of the results of Adam 
Williamson's poll. That portion of the community also appears to be mostly 
ignored by the rest of FESCo and by the Board, which makes me feel all the 
more that I need to pick up the fight. If it were just myself, I wouldn't 
fight that much for it. (You don't see me fighting for Bluecurve/Quarticurve 
by default (as would be my personal preference), for example. ;-) )

> I think more packagers are more concerned about too high hurdles -- when
> releasing a bug-fix update (such as testing feedback becoming mandatory
> even for niche packages) -- than about a policy on what sort of updates
> (and frequency of updates) would be permitted *without* special
> intervention.

I see that as a big problem as well, and I've also been fighting against 
that. With little success, as you have seen. :-( While the proposal that's 
now being discussed is not as bad as some of the other ones, it's very much 
at the border of the tolerable and I fear that any amendments are more 
likely to drag it on the side of the intolerable than on the side of the 
tolerable. :-(

> Well, thanks for any defense, but dragging me into the argument in a
> public meeting has set off the booby trap.

Well, that's true, and I'm sorry for that. It really wasn't my intention!

        Kevin Kofler