On 18 February 2016 at 14:13, ~Stack~ <i.am.stack(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 02/18/2016 01:56 PM, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
> On Tue, 16 Feb 2016 23:24:58 -0700
> Stephen John Smoogen <smooge(a)gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
>> 1. Packages will never disappear. [They don't disappear from Fedora 12
>> even if it is archived.. ]
>
> To my understanding we never made this promise. We should try and
> communicate why it's NOT something we promise.
Could you elaborate on this please? I have asked before, but didn't
really get an answer. I don't understand this.
Software in EPEL follows many of the same rules as software in Fedora.
If there isn't an active maintainer the software is removed. This is
because a lot of people expect that the software is going to be
getting updates and bug fixes when it is there. If it isn't there it
is clear that it isn't getting any bug fixes.
While as a user this is a major pain in the butt, on the other side
(maintainers and developers of the software) it is a major pain when
the opposite occurs. Developers get complaints about software they no
longer have any interest in and try to find someone to get rid of the
old software. People who are maintainers of other packages get long
hate emails about why is this software still in XYZ repository if no
one is going to care about it. It burnt out a lot of the early
repository people because they had made a package for someone at some
point but really didn't have any care for it to be there any longer
but all they were getting was crap for it being there.
So in Fedora and EPEL it is simple, you want a package that no one
else wants.. you maintain the package that no one else wants.
One of the reasons why I run my own mirror for my server farm is so
that
I can rsync mirror EPEL _without_ doing a delete. Why? Because this
happens to me _all_ the time:
Day 1: Install package from EPEL.
Day 2: What do you mean the package isn't found? Look at main repo.
Shit. Package was there yesterday! Dig through mailing list for an hour
until I find a reason (some times I don't find a reason at all and have
to dig through Fedora's Koji for one).
I get that there are a dozen valid reasons for a package to no longer be
updated, but as long as it keeps working I don't understand why it has
to be deleted. I have a couple dozen packages that I still install for
my user base that haven't been in the main EPEL repo in a year.
My mirror for just 6 & 7 is ~100GB now. Small price for me since it
doesn't delete which has saved my butt numerous times when a package
suddenly disappears.
Thanks!
~Stack~
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--
Stephen J Smoogen.