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-------- Original message --------
From: drago01 <drago01@gmail.com>
Date: 5/1/2016 12:00 PM (GMT-05:00)
To: Development discussions related to Fedora <devel@lists.fedoraproject.org>
Subject: Re: Plans for Node.js 6.x

On Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 4:00 AM, Stephen Gallagher <sgallagh@redhat.com> wrote:
> OK folks, it's Bad Decision Time.
>
> Today, Node.js 6.0 was released. This is a significant ABI-breaking release,
> which means there is no guarantee that existing modules will work with it at all.[1]
>
> Better still, Node.js 5.x is only going to be supported until sometime this
> summer, because they're aiming for the 6.x branch to become the new LTS in
> October[2]. This puts us in quite a bind.
>
> Fedora disallows major ABI changes in a stable release, so if Fedora 24 Final
> ships with Node.js 5.x, we will be stuck with maintaining it until Fedora 24 EOL

The whole thread is based on this wrong assumption. Quoting from the
update policy [1]:

"If upstream does not provide security fixes for a particular release,
and if backporting the fix would be impractical, then a package may be
rebased onto a version that upstream supports. The definition of
practicality is left to the judgment of FESCO and the packager. "

And from the discussion that seems to be the case here so I'd opt for

4) Leave 5.x in and once it becomes EOL and a security issues comes up
update to 6.x mid release. It would have had been tested in rawhide
(and possible COPR) in the meantime which would minimize the impact.

1: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Updates_Policy#Security_fixes
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While true, FESCo recently (last Friday) approved a draft update to that policy that explains that backwards-compatibility breakages are almost never acceptable in a stable release. Since 6.0 breaks compat, FESCo would probably vote against the upgrade mid-release (and I would agree with that).