Fedora Extras [LWN.net]

Fedora Extras

Posted Jun 9, 2005 2:25 UTC (Thu) by jwboyer (subscriber, #23296)
Parent article: A tale of two distributions

Calling Extras a second class citizen is a bit unfair. In the past few months Extras development has been increasing at a very impressive rate. The folks at Red Hat have done quite a good job at getting Extras community friendly and pretty easy to develop with.

As for updates and security issues, I fail to see how Extras is any different from Debian or Gentoo or any other non-corporation backed distribution. Debian, Gentoo, Ubuntu all rely on community volunteers to provide updates and security releases. If people don't volunteer their time, nothing gets done. Fedora Extras is no different.

Just because Red Hat doesn't control Extras the same way it does Core doesn't make it second class. This incorrect thinking is exactly what the Extras developers are trying to overcome. It has good quality packages and great leadership. Now if you've got suggestions on what could be done better, feel free to let the Extras mailing list know. We always welcome suggestions. But don't demote it just because it's new.

(And for the record, yes I am an Extras developer)

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Fedora Extras

Posted Jun 9, 2005 3:05 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

I'm sorry, but Debian and Gentoo do an outstanding job with security support; they are usually the first to get an alert out. Can you honestly say that extras has the same sort of response? There are no alerts for extras, of course, but does the project get patched packages out as quickly as Debian and Gentoo do?

I run a Fedora (rawhide) system, and I depend heavily on extras. I'm very glad it's there. But I do believe that packages in extras are less equal than the rest.

Fedora Extras

Posted Jun 9, 2005 11:09 UTC (Thu) by jwboyer (subscriber, #23296) [Link]

Debian and Gentoo do a great job. I wasn't trying to say otherwise. I was just saying that both of them depend on volunteers from the community exactly as Extras does.

Extras is still growing and there hasn't been many security issues in the packages that are already there so it's hard to compare response time. But for the packages that we do have, most of them are updated pretty quickly when a new version comes out. Usually with about a day of turn around time.

I'm not sure what you mean by "packages in extras are less equal than the rest". Quite a few of the packages in Extras came directly from Core when they were dropped for Fedora Core 4 and several of those are still maintained by Red Hat because they are used in RHEL (exim comes to mind).

I respect your opinion, but I doubt you'll change my mind. If anything you've made me even more determined. So I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Who knows... maybe when the test releases for FC5 roll out, you'll be singing a different tune ;).

Fedora Extras

Posted Jun 18, 2005 11:52 UTC (Sat) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]

Stating that Debian security updates "rely on community volunteers" is meaningless, since of course the entirety of Debian is constructed by "community volunteers". I suspect that what was suggested by second class status is that the practical results of the handling of the Extras for Fedora Core make them somewhat less well managed than the mainline packages. I am just guessing of course, since I know little of Fedora Core myself.