Am 01.03.2011 20:59, schrieb Guido Berhoerster:
* Wolfgang Rosenauer <wolfgang@rosenauer.org> [2011-03-01 20:01]:
There are different types of packages in Contrib currently, including - packages dropped from Factory because security maintenance is very hard (e.g. some php apps)
If packages constitute a security risk or are hardly maintainable they should be clearly identified as such so people are aware of what they are getting into, e.g. by putting these packages in a separate repo. Everything else is just a disservice to our users.
Agreed. But openSUSE as a distribution has no answer to that (yet). Every package in oss is treated the same way (basically).
- packages dropped from Factory because they are outdated immediately and nobody likes to use them for two years from $DIST
I'd say such packages fit the way Packman operates and so be maintained there, in fact as somebody noticed on the Packman list there is already duplication between some Contrib and Packman packages.
Please don't get me wrong as I like the packman service but there are a few reasons why I don't think packman is the way to go (at least IMHO). First it's a separate developer group. I have no access to it just with my opensuse identity. I don't like to have a separate infrastructure for that type of packages. This just sounds wrong to me. Another one is that I'm unsure about the quality of the packages there (please note that I have the same concerns for Contrib currently). There is no bugtracker, there is no way to easily contribute (I think).
- packages dropped from Factory just because they haven't been touched upstream for years (but are still doing their job well) (e.g. abook)
If they work and have a package maintainer looking after it I see no reason why they should not be in Factory.
Same here, but there are packages which were dropped just for that reason. Therefore I asked the Factory people if we should just bring them back into Factory?
Apart from the three categories you mentioned there is a fourth category, namely many packages of both obscure and fairly mainstream software which seems to be in Contrib for no good reason at all. And what is really bad about this is that some of these packages are of awful quality and badly maintained, something that could have been prevented by proper review and the high quality standards applied to Factory. This alone is for me the decisive argument why Contrib should just die.
My categories were not exclusive and anyway I fully agree with you. From quickly checking some Contrib stuff there are some really bad examples. Seems quite some stuff slipped through the review process too easily.
I would like to hear from Factory maintainers what their thoughts are about the above types of packages. Probably nothing changed here and therefore the statement "everything should enter Factory" is not realistic?
I believe it is realistic, the few packages that fit your first and third category could easily be moved to a separate repo or Packman respectively while the rest should just be migrated to Factory. It would raise the quality of the distribution and be a benefit to users.
Again agreed. We should really work on bringing the useful stuff into Factory but I see leftovers where it might make sense to still have them available. I'm wondering where "be moved to a separate repo" is different from redefining what Contrib is? Wolfgang -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org