CentOS - Oct 2017 - How to encourage maintainers to update their software

How do I best encourage maintainers to update the software they are responsible
for in various repositories?

Akema Yagi made sure kmod-jfs for CentOS 7 was updated amazingly fast which is
greatly appreciated. On the other hand, I have requested updates of some other
software packages and have heard absolutely nothing in months...

On Fri, 27 Oct 2017 17:32:03 -0400
H wrote:
> How do I best encourage maintainers to update the software they are
> responsible for in various repositories?
If it's something that you need or want and it's not available in a repo
that you currently use you can compile it yourself.

I do that with a number of packages that are either newer or simply not
available in the various Centos repos.  In many cases it's as easy as
downloading a new tar source file and adding it to the existing source rpm,
doing three seconds of editing on the spec file to account for the new update,
and compiling the result.  Sometimes it's even easier -- just download a
newer Fedora rpm and compile that on your Centos system.

-- 
MELVILLE THEATRE ~ Real D 3D Digital Cinema ~ www.melvilletheatre.com

On October 27, 2017 5:54:45 PM EDT, Frank Cox <theatre at sasktel.net>
wrote:
>On Fri, 27 Oct 2017 17:32:03 -0400
>H wrote:
>
>> How do I best encourage maintainers to update the software they are
>> responsible for in various repositories?
>
>If it's something that you need or want and it's not available in a
>repo that you currently use you can compile it yourself.
>
>I do that with a number of packages that are either newer or simply not
>available in the various Centos repos.  In many cases it's as easy as
>downloading a new tar source file and adding it to the existing source
>rpm, doing three seconds of editing on the spec file to account for the
>new update, and compiling the result.  Sometimes it's even easier --
>just download a newer Fedora rpm and compile that on your Centos
>system.
>
>-- 
>MELVILLE THEATRE ~ Real D 3D Digital Cinema ~ www.melvilletheatre.com
>_______________________________________________
>CentOS mailing list
>CentOS at centos.org
>https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
These are software packages listed in various repositories, thus ostensibly
maintained...

On 10/27/2017 2:54 PM, Frank Cox wrote:
>
> I do that with a number of packages that are either newer or simply not
available in the various Centos repos.  In many cases it's as easy as
downloading a new tar source file and adding it to the existing source rpm,
doing three seconds of editing on the spec file to account for the new update,
and compiling the result.  Sometimes it's even easier -- just download a
newer Fedora rpm and compile that on your Centos system.
>
It would be nice if this remained even a *suggestion* at the Fedora 
layer, but there seems to be from occasional obliviousness to outright 
hostility to the idea of keeping spec files broadly compatible across a 
range of downstream releases and for other RPM-based distributions, or 
not ripping out compatibility at Fedora-speed. (Even leaving aside 
"burn-the-ships" actions like outright banning SysV init scripts.)

It didn't seem to use to be that case. IMO it makes a lot more sense to 
wrap distro-specific .spec file changes in conditionals and let the 
rpmbuild do the right thing than to post and maintain separate versions 
for Fedora, EPEL, and anything else.


-jc