"Unbundling SIG" was [Re: Summary/Minutes from today's FESCo Meeting (2015-10-07)]

[Kevin Kofler]

Matthew Miller wrote:
> When the packager has reasoned belief that debundling is actively bad
> in some way for this package, I think we should trust the packager. I
> know not everyone on this thread agrees, but in general, Fedora
> *always* places a high level of trust in our packagers to make the
> right call in all sorts of situations. Here, perhaps some of the
> current (former?) pages on the rationale for unbundling could be moved
> into the Unbundling SIG's space and used as guidance.

I am worried that a lot of packagers will just refuse to do anything that
upstream does not support, either:
* because they ARE upstream, or
* because they are too worried about offending upstream, or
* because they are too lazy and/or too busy to rebase patches.
And the often-cited fact that there are more and more upstreams not
supporting unbundling only makes this WORSE and is actually a reason for
MORE strictness in downstream policies, not less!

The new policy does not require any kind of rationale for refusing, just
saying "no" is enough to block everything.

> Obviously we're not Debian, but I think this part from their Getting
> Started guide applies to volunteer software projects in general:
> 
> * We all are volunteers.
>  * You cannot impose on others what to do.
>  * You should be motivated to do things by yourself.
> 
> <https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/start.en.html#socialdynamics>

I find it funny that you are citing Debian in an attempt to support your
point, because Debian actually has a "no bundled libraries" policy at least
as strict as our old one.

        Kevin Kofler