Just FTR: above we have "I think" vs "in practice, it
looks not like you
may think".
Real engineering is about 1) testing, 2) testing, 3) testing.
"Assumption" like, "I think" is/should be the real enemy of each
engineer.
Stricter use of branching will have yet another effects that for example
older Fedoras will have less updates.
IMO those updates should be only about security and critical updates.
On first look, it may look as the negative side effect because some end
users/consumers may expect some number of "refreshes" for every Fedora
release which is still not EOSed like it is now.
However, as Fedora has short development cycle not releasing those
"refreshes" for older Fedoras have IMO much greater positive effects:
1) easier to test upgrades between Fedora versions
As each Fedora major release may have in updates only security and critical
fixes and ABI (libraries SONAME changes) will be completely locked down it
will be easier work on a set of test units testing upgrades on top of
different sets of installed packages.
Doesn't relate to packages which rarely see an update if at all.
2) more people (packagers and regular end users) will be focused on
testing
of latest Fedora version
Do you have some results of a testing or you just assume this would be the case?
Simple more eyeballs using exact latest Fedora than more likely that
after
hitting sometimes small issue it will be reported to BTS.
As consequence RH people making own snapshot to start working next major EL
version may expect that they will have fewer issues to resolve after making
such snapshot.
3) fewer packagers will be spending time on backporting some changes
Doesn't relate to packages which rarely see an update.
> This is as well important because as result those people will have MORE
> time to work on changes on master. In other words, it will allow better
> concentration of limited man/hours resources to make each major Fedora
> release better/more tested.
>
>
> There is always cost some changes. There is no "something for nothing".
> IMO in altering general policy about release updates of older Fedora
> version will have the weight of those "good consequences" greater than the
> weight of those "bad effects" which in some people opinion such change may
> introduce.
> Simple it is not possible to make happy everyone and the decisive point
> should be not close to single end-user needs but in point where it is
> possible to have broader/whole view of distribution issues.
> At the moment as master branch is used to make every not EOSed Fedora, it
> forces to use much more complicated by %ifings form of most of the Fedora
> spec files,
> This as consequences make many large-scale distribution changes *much more
> complicated*.
>
> kloczek