Update strategy (was: Re: TestDisk in EPEL ?)

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

Hi all!

I got below mail in private and wanted to discuss it here in the open
(got permission from the Christophe to forward his mail here).

On 13.05.2007 21:16, Christophe GRENIER wrote:
> On Sun, 13 May 2007, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>> Building you Fedora packages for EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise
>> Linux -- http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL ) is possible for some
>> months now. But it seem lots of Fedora contributors wait for a kind of
>> start signal to begin. *This mail is this start signal*, as we have all
>> the important pieces in place now! So go and build your Fedora packages
>> for EPEL if you want, to have your packages easily available for RHEL
>> and compatible derivates such as CentOS or Scientific Linux in the
>> future as well!
>> ...
>> Is EPEL a rolling release like Fedora Extras was? No, the plan is to
>> have a update strategy similar to the one from RHEL. E.g. ship software
>> once and only update it to later versions if there is a strong need --
>> so no "hey, there is a new version, it builds, let's ship it" mentality
>> in EPEL please. See
>> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL/GuidelinesAndPolicies for more details.
> [...]
> I think that TestDisk and PhotoRec should be avaible for RedHat Enterprise
> but as they are recovery utilities , it's usually/always better to use
> latest version. Should I request an EPEL branch and update to new
> version (if recovery has been improved) 2/3 weeks after fc-devel package ?

My 2 cent:

* updates always bear risks.

* updates especially bear risks if the combination of app + libs +
kernel is not tested much. That happens in RHEL quickly, as libs and
kernel are not moving much (while app moves and will likely get testing
with more recent libs and kernels).

* users choose RHEL because it doesn't move much -- why should a add-on
repo be different?

* there are "recovery utilities" in RHEL5 -- but even those only get
updates if there is a good reasons to

So my answer for this specific app would be: if there are minor TestDisk
versions (e.g. from 6.6-1.fc7 to 6.6-2 or 6.7-2) that *mainly* fix bugs
released over the next 2 or 3 years then feel free to update them in
EPEL *if* there is a really good reason for it. Major new versions that
that change behavior (e.g. command line options for example) should be
avoid if possible. After RHEL6 is out and settled for a while only touch
the RHEL5 TestDisk package if there is a strong need to and avoid even
minor versions.

That round about what
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL/GuidelinesAndPolicies says afaics.

Other opinions?

Cu
thl