Hi Michel,
In my opinion you are wrong because:
Fact: update repo has broken packages. Fact: broken packages keeps sleeping into update repo. Fact: QA must consider everything broken until proven contrary. Fact: You failed to lead situation toward an improvement in Fedora (as mission statement says), because you failed to professionally analyze user comment and make required adjustment.
Someone more open will spot the workaround in a second: "Change the system to give negative karma from start ( or consider zero karma as not acceptable for updates-repo) when a package arrives into updates-testing, thus we will ensure that some human at least tried to install and test the package before it gets with positive karma in updates-repo this will not annoy users" .
Overall it is bad for fedora public image to have broken upupdate packages.
I personally think that you do not reflect the spirit of fedora where people are friendly and open and strive for bleeding-edge improvements.
Thanks. MM.
On Mon, 3 Aug 2009 08:14:32 -0700 (PDT), Maria wrote:
Hi Michel,
In my opinion you are wrong because:
Yes, given your sender address, it's a wrong decision to reply to your strange email at all.
Fact: update repo has broken packages.
True. The package cannot be installed, and in order to work around it, it requires users to exclude it (or use --skip-broken) manually. Nobody claimed otherwise.
Fact: broken packages keeps sleeping into update repo.
True. Nobody claimed otherwise.
Fact: QA must consider everything broken until proven contrary.
False. In a project where a lot may be contributed by volunteers, you need to be careful when to say somebody "must" do something. Further, as I explained before, there is no global QA in Fedora that has the resources to handle everything. And there are no automated tests run on updates so far, either. Ideally, every package at Fedora would be maintained by a team of volunteers which would include at least one power-user, who would perform a couple of key run-time tests for sure.
Fact: You failed to lead situation toward an improvement in Fedora (as mission statement says), because you failed to professionally analyze user comment and make required adjustment.
False. First of all, I'm not occupying any leadership position in the Fedora Project, and I'm not a Fedora press spokesman either. What I write is not an official statement made by the Fedora Project.
Secondly, in reply to the synce-hal/synce-serial broken dep, I made sure that Extras repoclosure detects these kinds of "Obsoletes without Provides" packaging mistakes in the future. The script, however, is not run in a place where it would have veto-powers and could block broken updates. I run it from a remote location. It notifies package owners, and it's the package owners' responsibility to push updates into updates-testing first, to give such scripts the chance to be run.
Finally, you can't win anything at all if you attack me from arbitrary @yahoo.com addresses.
Someone more open will spot the workaround in a second: "Change the system to give negative karma from start ( or consider zero karma as not acceptable for updates-repo) when a package arrives into updates-testing, thus we will ensure that some human at least tried to install and test the package before it gets with positive karma in updates-repo this will not annoy users" .
Who are you to think that no other people before you have discussed alternative update policies? Truth is, so far, no relevant committee has made updates-testing (or +N karma) mandatory. It would be considered as unneeded bureaucracy by enough package maintainers.
Packagers are free to choose between pushing into updates-testing or marking updates stable immediately.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Package_update_guidelines
Overall it is bad for fedora public image to have broken upupdate packages.
True. For some types of updates, marking them stable immediately, without giving the Fedora community a chance to contribute testing, is frowned upon.
I personally think that you do not reflect the spirit of fedora where people are friendly and open and strive for bleeding-edge improvements.
You mean, let's do more role-playing then? ;)
On Mon, 2009-08-03 at 08:14 -0700, Maria Magdalena wrote:
In my opinion you are wrong because:
Fact: update repo has broken packages. Fact: broken packages keeps sleeping into update repo. Fact: QA must consider everything broken until proven contrary. Fact: You failed to lead situation toward an improvement in Fedora (as mission statement says), because you failed to professionally analyze user comment and make required adjustment.
Someone more open will spot the workaround in a second: "Change the system to give negative karma from start ( or consider zero karma as not acceptable for updates-repo) when a package arrives into updates-testing, thus we will ensure that some human at least tried to install and test the package before it gets with positive karma in updates-repo this will not annoy users" .
Ahem. Maria, Michael has not tried to argue whether the current situation is good or not, he has just tried to explain what the current situation /is/. There is no current policy that would cover what you point out as a hole. That's all he's doing.
The fact that there is a hole is very well known, and multiple attempts have been made at passing policy that would shore up that hole somewhat. However any policy that tries to dictate what and when maintainers can push things fails to pass, seemingly because maintainers feel that they must remain in control of when their updates go out, regardless of what they break.
So I would encourage you to try and draft and pass the policy you mentioned, as well as come up with the man power to enforce it and to provide the karma necessary to move packages along. If you succeed, great, if not, you'll have more of an idea why this issue is as of yet unfixed.
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Jesse Keating -
Maria Magdalena -
Michael Schwendt