Changing kernel API / Breaking VirtualBox - update criteria violation?

[Dave Jones]

On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 07:24:20PM +0100, Thomas Moschny wrote:
 > 2011/11/22 Dave Jones <davej at redhat.com>:
 > > On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 09:55:59AM -0800, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
 > > Consideration implies that the following thought process will occur
 > >
 > > "This update will break out of tree modules, perhaps we shouldn't push it."
 > >
 > > That isn't going to happen.
 > 
 > To me, this sounds like knowingly violating the Updates Policy, which
 > states: "Updates should aim to fix bugs, and not introduce features,
 > particularly when those features would materially affect the user or
 > developer experience."

(Ignoring the fact that changing a documented unstable API isn't anything to do with
 a "developer experience")

The kernel gets more bugs filed against it than any other component in the distro.
Obviously this needs to be dealt with somehow.

Asides from rebasing, we have two alternatives.

1. We backport just the fixes from upstream.
Not feasible with the limited manpower we have.
(See F14 for a great example of this failing)

2. We close every bug with ->NEXTRELEASE

If someone wants to do the relevant beurocracy to document this in the policies,
go wild, but the kernel has always been this way since Fedora's inception.

	Dave