Plan for tomorrow's FESCo meeting (2010-11-17)

[Kevin Kofler]

François Cami wrote:
> There is also no other choice if we want to reduce the probability of
> introducing regressions in updates.

Well, I don't see why we need separate testing on F13 for the exact same 
stuff which got tested by 4 people on F14.

> I also happen to believe that pushing a new version (not a dot
> release) of an entire DE (or any complex software for that matter) to
> a stable Fedora release is a very bad idea.

The update we're talking about was an update from 4.5.2 to 4.5.3, a pure 
bugfix update.

> There might obviously be new features and bugfixes but there *will* be
> other bugs. It's a fact. Since we're apparently not always prepared to
> backport fixes from upstream each time we find bugs, I fail to see why
> replacing a release by another, each with its different bugs, is a win,
> from the user's point of view. IMHO this is far too much disruptive a
> decision, since users who rely on specific features to work could get
> their desktops hosed between releases. How are they supposed to handle
> that?

The breakage is supposed to be noticed and fixed during the extensive 
testing we do for that kind of updates. We tested 4.5.x for about half a 
year in total: ~3 months of prerelease testing in kde-redhat unstable, ~2 
months of 4.5.x testing in kde-redhat testing and ~1 month of 4.5.2 testing 
in both kde-redhat testing and the official updates-testing. We fixed ALL 
the regressions we knew about and only declared the update stable once our 
tracker was clear.

I would also like to remind you that:
* Those 4.n+1.0 releases fix THOUSANDS of bugs.kde.org bugs. Bugs don't 
always get fixed on the branch for various reasons, plus there's also about 
a month between 4.n.5 and 4.n+1.0, in which additional bugs get fixed.
* Any further bugfixes are done only in the 4.n+1 branch and as such depend 
on the initial 4.n+1.0 (or 4.n+1.x) update. No upgrade to 4.n+1.x == no more 
bugfixes! Or almost: Unlike what you claim, we CAN and DO backport 
individual bugfixes where appropriate, but there's just NO WAY we can 
backport hundreds or thousands of fixes. (Even the entire Fedora Project 
doesn't have that kind of manpower!)

That said, that's really a separate discussion. (It's about the "stable 
updates vision", not about the "update acceptance criteria".) As I said, the 
update being discussed here was an update to a bugfix release!

        Kevin Kofler