Fedora.next in 2014 -- Big Picture and Themes

[Josh Boyer]

On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 5:16 PM, Adam Williamson <awilliam at redhat.com> wrote:
> quoting simplified: >>> is Tom Hughes, >> is me, > is Josh. Restored
> part of Tom's original context.
>
>>> > The actual spins (or whatever you want to call them) aren't something
>>> > that bother me at all, as they are to my mind largely irrelevant for
>>> > anybody other than a new user. When I bring a new machine up I just want
>>> > to get a base OS on and access to the package repository and what
>>> > packages are installed by default doesn't really bother me.
>
>> > > To be honest my concerns are more with my user hat on than my contributor
>> > > hat - that we will lose the gold standard unified packaging standards and
>> > > single source and mechanism for installing packages.
>
>> > If these plans go ahead, we will have multiple official/blessed methods
>> > for deploying software on Fedora, potentially with different policies
>> > about what software they can include and how that software should be
>> > arranged, how dependencies should be handled, and all the rest of it.
>> > Some of these methods will be shared between products, and some will
>> > either only exist in certain products, or at least be clearly associated
>> > with and 'owned' by those products.
>>
>> Also possibly correct.  However, that doesn't preclude the repos as we
>> know them today from still existing, with still the same quality.
>
> Read all the above sequentially. My point is that although you are
> technically correct that no WG has proposed doing away with the repos,
> the RPM format, or yum/dnf, their plans - under a reasonable
> interpretation of the discussions so far - still invalidate the
> assumptions he is currently making: he can no longer assume that all he
> basically has to worry about is getting 'Fedora' installed somehow and
> he can then install whatever he likes. Broadly stated, it will no longer
> be valid to conceive of Fedora as a large package repository with some
> installation methods attached to it, whereas currently that's a pretty
> reasonable conceptual framework that I believe many people (not just
> Tom) employ.
>
> In other words, Tom was really correct. ;)

I don't see how you come to that conclusion, at least not without
making some large assumptions.  The addition of alternate solutions
for package installation and deployment doesn't preclude people from
being able to install Fedora and use the underlying tools to point to
the existing repos.

>
>>   As
>> far as I'm aware, the products are still planning on being built from
>> packages provided by the Fedora project, from the Fedora buildsystem.
>>
>> So yes, there may very well be different options.  That doesn't mean
>> they can't also be the same if you choose not to use those different
>> things.
>
> Is that going to be a reasonably sustainable approach, though? It's at
> least possible that it won't. What if the Desktop 'product' starts
> caring much about shipping commonly-used desktop applications as 'app
> bundles' rather than packages? What if the Server 'product' implements
> Wordpress as a container image rather than a package?

What if, what if, what if.  Yes, all possible.  Also possible is that
we punt on the whole idea.  This is the point where we diverge.  I do
not see value in somehow saying things will be different and one
_cannot_ still do things they do today with no indication that such a
world is even planned.  You seem to be very cautionary of the whole
thing.  Neither view is wrong.

>>   I understand your concern and it's something worth watching,
>> but I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that things will be
>> horrible or users will be forced to give up RPMs and repos.
>>
>> josh
>
> I certainly agree that it's not a foregone conclusion, and I don't think
> I suggested it was, but your initial email seemed to more or less
> entirely dismiss the possibility, and I don't think that's warranted.

I wasn't being dismissive.  I have seen no plans to alter the core of
how Fedora, at a package level, is built.  In fact, if I did see a
proposal that said "we're not going to ship repositories or RPMs" I'd
be pretty damned upset, and I wouldn't support that.

At this point I think our conversation is going to cease being
productive, but I do believe it's been productive thus far.  Thanks!

josh