Mike A. Harris wrote:
On Fri, 10 Oct 2003, Robin Green wrote:
(Although, admittedly, the Fedora model is to try and make changes
upstream only as much as posssible, for most packages. I suspect that
I don't really see how that is any different than we do now though. For example, I'm not going to not fix bugs in XFree86 because XFree86.org hasn't checked a patch into CVS. It could take 8-12 months for that to happen. Right now my XFree86 rpms have over 120 patches in them, and future builds will have more and more. If it didn't then what would be my job for example?
We don't really control upstream projects much, all we can do is make sure to send our fixes and whatnot upstream. But we certainly should never wait until upstream projects apply our fixes and release new versions of their software in order to ship it. That is just silly and needless lag. The distro would never be stable and/or would never ship.
Patches are and always will be needed to fix bugs.
And therein lies an essential role in providing a good distro - people who contribute to the stabilization of all the constituent parts, and the timely revision of relevant patch sets to produce viable packages as upstream changes occur.
A tip of the fedora to all of you maintainers who make quality releases possible. ;)
-- Chris Johnson, RHCE #807000448202021
