Ten years of Fedora [LWN.net]

Ten years of Fedora

Posted Sep 24, 2013 0:21 UTC (Tue) by torquay (guest, #92428)
In reply to: Ten years of Fedora by ovitters
Parent article: Ten years of Fedora

Isn't API up to upstream?

API and ABI breakage is a bug, and Fedora fixes bugs before releasing its compilation to users, no ?

Fedora is in a good position to spot such breakage, whether by manual or automatic means, and submit patches upstream. Otherwise Fedora can refuse to ship an updated library until upstream fixes its API breakage. It's better to be part of the solution, rather than to continue propagating API instability throughout the Linux ecosystem.

As Fedora uses "first" as a motivation, how about being the first to have a deliberate API compatibility tests for the libraries and other software it ships? Part of the work is done already: http://upstream-tracker.org

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Ten years of Fedora

Posted Sep 24, 2013 7:58 UTC (Tue) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]

Why would API and ABI breakage be a bug? I know lots of software which doesn't have an stable ABI or API. I am not aware of any software which has all the bugs fixed before release. Stuff is always released with loads of known bugs.

The first is about being first to show changes (IMO they're often not first :P). Not about first to do what you want.

You showed a site which tracks something. Then this site should link together with upstream and provide continuous integration. Putting a distribution inbetween just seems inefficient.

Releasing a perfect distribution every 6 months is IMO not possible. For Fedora I'd rather have them focus on making the installer really good, really easy to upgrade, etc. API/ABI: just focus on allowing applications bundles.