[lug] Fedora 7 is out, but don't yum upgrade

[Collins Richey]

On 6/3/07, Nate Duehr <nate at natetech.com> wrote:
>
> Anaconda and yum are basically both just relying on what the
> underlying RPM package does.  If the package maintainer has poorly
> designed the pre and post run scripts in the package, breakage seems
> to occur.

Doubtless true, but unlike your suggestion below, I don't really
believe that either Ubuntu or Ubuntu consider this to be a "mission
critical" problem.
>

[ Debian approach snipped ]

> I think the problem is more subtle than the technical details
> mentioned thus far.  The subtle problem is that if some package does
> not upgrade cleanly, it's not really the developer's problem in the
> RH world.

Or in the Ubuntu world.


>
> You also have the added side-benefit of weeding out the devs who
> "can't be bothered" with such niceties as taking care of the end-user
> and making an upgrade a good experience for them.
>
> I think the majority of RH/Fedora devs *do* care, but they still have
> an "out" when the going gets tough.  The leadership of Fedora should
> close that loophole instead of apologizing for it.
>

I'm not convinced that very many of the Ubuntu / RH developers care to
build a release that can be upgraded as a guaranteed process, and I'm
quite sure that the leadership in both cases does not care. The
mission in both cases is to tame the bleeding edge stuff sufficiently
that many users can adopt it. Upgradability appears to be only
important to Debian and Gentoo.

This is not to imply that either Debian or Gentoo is perfect in any
respect. They just have a different mission in mind.

-- 
Collins Richey
     If you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries
     of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for.