Considering GNOME 3.12 as an F20 update

[Matthew Miller]

On Thu, Apr 03, 2014 at 06:09:43PM +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> You didn't mention the most important question:
> 
> Did the API or ABI change in backward-incompatible way?
> 
> If the answer to this question is "yes", then the answer to updating
> to gnome-3.12 needs to be no, because such changes in released
> versions of Fedora are not allowed.

I think we should ground the discussion in the actual policy, which doesn't
say that, but does say "ABI changes in general are very strongly discouraged
and "Avoid Major version updates, ABI breakage or API changes if at all
possible." That is significantly more qualifed. And more to the point, it
says
  
   Some classes of software will not fit in these guidelines. If your
   package does not fit in one of the classes below, but you think it should
   be allowed to update more rapidly, propose a new exception class to FESCO
   and/or request an exception for your specific update case.

   Note that you should open this dialog BEFORE you build or push updates.

which is exactly what is happening here.

<http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Updates_Policy>

Now, in reading that policy, there are quite a few things that match the
"Things that would make it less likely to grant a request" list. But, on the
other hand, by having a longer-than-typical Fedora release cycle this time
around, we are already in special circumstances territory.



-- 
Matthew Miller    --   Fedora Project    --    <mattdm at fedoraproject.org>
                                  "Tepid change for the somewhat better!"