On Tuesday, November 27, 2018, Owen Taylor <otaylor@redhat.com> wrote:
On Tue, Nov 27, 2018 at 10:51 AM Stephen Gallagher <sgallagh@redhat.com> wrote:
> As came up in another part of the earlier thread, I think this is an
> opportunity for Modularity. For those things like GNOME that want to
> rev mid-release, if they shipped the 3.34 release as new stream, those
> that want to move to it will have that option, and those who fear
> change can remain on the 3.32 release, even if it's not getting
> support. This would have to be something communicated at release-time
> of course.

If we want to offer optional GNOME-3.34, a module is probably a better
alternative to using a copr - which is what we did last time.
(https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/rhughes/f20-gnome-3-12/) But
we have to recognize that if we create such a module we are
effectively creating a Fedora 30.1 - because libraries in that module
will replace system libraries. From the point where we release such a
module, any RPM-packaged applications that use GNOME libraries will
have to be tested against *both* F30 and F30+gnome-3-34.

It's also a minimally scalable approach - we wouldn't want to have a
GNOME 3.34 module and a NetworkManager-1.16 module and support
arbitrary combinations.

And we'd have to figure out some strategy for not breaking F31 updates
when you have the desktop:3.34 module enabled.



I don't think modules are useful for non self contained package sets (like a desktop environment). As you said we might end up having half the distro in that module.