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Ciaran McCreesh wrote: |
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> On Sun, 6 May 2007 00:25:20 +0200 |
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> expose@×××××××××××.net wrote: |
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>> It is critical if your filesystem might be damaged, if there are |
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>> security issues of any kind, or if something stops working. |
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> |
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> It is critical if it requires manual action by many or the majority of |
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> targetted users. |
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> |
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I might offer a primarily-end-user perspective. |
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First - the ELOG feature added a few months back (allowing emailing of |
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notices/etc) is GREAT! Now I can track read/unread using my email |
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software, which is clearly suited to such purposes. |
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I think that this mechanism is ideal for most notices. However, maybe I |
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can suggest a few categories that need advance warning: |
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1. Cases where upgrading a major dependency requires revdep-rebuild. |
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For example, if my glibc upgrade borks half the system until I recompile |
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3/4ths of it I'd like to know about that BEFORE installing it. |
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2. Updates to server-oriented software (sendmail/ postfix/ apache/ |
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mysql/ postgres/ mythtv/ etc) that require significant manual tweaks. |
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People running this kind of software generally don't want unexpected |
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downtime, even in situations that don't demand test environments. |
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3. Updates of any kind that could prevent booting or network access if |
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mishandled. You don't want users leaving their systems in an unbootable |
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state for more than a few minutes, or in a state where it is hard to get |
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to online info. |
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4. Anything security-related that requires advance warning. Honestly, |
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I couldn't think of an example of this. If a package leaves the system |
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insecure by default that would qualify, but I doubt anybody would design |
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such a package in the first place. |
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I think that what is really needed are guidelines. No user is going to |
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complain about getting 14 news items when they should have gotten 13. |
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On the other hand, if they get 100 instead of 5 that would be an issue. |
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As long as we don't go hog-wild I'd think that any issues would be |
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easily addressed with time. Right now I think users would appreciate |
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advance notice about some things that have caused major headaches in the |
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past (ABI breaks/etc). |
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I think the priority setting idea was a good one - even if people argue |
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over whether something is a 3 or a 4 on the 1-5 scale, at least we know |
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the difference between a 1 and a 5. And I'd like to think that devs |
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have better things to do than nitpick each other's ebuilds over things |
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like that... :) |
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Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org |
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iD8DBQFGPS0BG4/rWKZmVWkRAm+cAJ9pmr17brezGsdw3v7LIq9ARveinwCfUB3d |
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Oo3vanOr3cewFgc8DDjfzVo= |
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=tRk/ |
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