[Proposal] Ring-based Packaging Policies

[Michael Schwendt]

On Fri, 13 Feb 2015 17:45:23 -0700, Ken Dreyer wrote:

> > On Thu, 12 Feb 2015 16:49:13 -0500, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
> >> Ultimately, it's about one thing: Help get more software into Fedora
> >> without scaring people away.
> >
> > What is the background for this? Who has been scared away?
> 
> Here's one review where the submitter worked very hard to jump through
> all the hoops until it came to the FPC bundling exception process.
> It's my opinion that Carlos would be a Fedora package maintainer today
> if that FPC process hadn't taken so long.
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/682544

So, everybody's grief is just the unbundling policy?
Is that the only thing that "scares away" people?
Everything related to this proposal is only because of bundling?

> Here's the new policy that I would vote for:
> 
> 1) We allow bundled libraries, and each bundled library MUST have a
>    virtual Provides: bundled(foo) in the RPM spec. (The packager SHOULD
>    provide a version number too, with the admission that it is sometimes
>    difficult to get this number correct.)
> 
> 2) If another packager comes up with a patch to unbundle the library and files
>    the patch in Bugzilla, then the package maintainer MUST take the
>    patch.
> 
> 3) If the package maintainer disagrees with the patch for whatever reason
>    (maybe it's a feature regression, or whatever), they MUST bring it to
>    the FPC for arbitration. The FPC must take into account the loss of
>    functionality that unbundling could imply.
> 
> This revised policy would lower the barrier to entry for newcomers,
> and still leave room for more advanced contributors to do the work if
> they desired to do so.

Isn't the combination of 2) and 3) a potential threat that will scare away
the maintainer again? (especially if upstream doesn't accept the patch)