On 10/20/14, 4:13 PM, "Ted Dunning" <ted.dunn...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 3:08 PM, Alex Harui <aha...@adobe.com> wrote:
>
>> I know we can’t go messing around with source packages without a vote,
>>but
>> what about binary packages?  Is it against policy to do something like
>> this, and if so, can exceptions be made?
>>
>
>I may not have followed this quite correctly, here is what I understood of
>the situation as you described it:
>
>1) there is a bug in the FlexJS distro, considered low priority due to
>sparse use
>
>2) you needed a quickly corrected binary distribution
>
>3) you created a correct distribution artifact and put it somewhere
>non-Apache
>
>4) you aren't claiming that the artifact you created is an Apache release
>and you are pointing some workshop participants at your release.
>
>I fail to see any problem whatsoever in what you did.  You used Apache
>software to create a derived work which you are asking people to use in an
>instructional setting.  As far as I can tell, the only claim you are
>making
>is that your artifact is FlexJS with a fix that should be incorporated
>upstream before long.
>
>What's the problem?
Well, the use of the Installer sort of implies that folks are getting the
same binary kit that was on dist/mirrors.  So one of our PMC members is
objecting to this plan, even though the net result of what ends up on the
user’s disk is the same.  We won’t be pointing just the workshop
participants at this modified binary, essentially everyone who uses the
installer to install FlexJS 0.0.2 will get it.

This may not be a fair analogy, but suppose you bundled an external jar in
a binary distro and found out much later that the jar was corrupted and
needed a quick fix.  Would you do what I just did and post a corrected
binary somewhere outside Apache and then update your downloads page to
point just the binary link there instead of the usual dist/mirrors?  For
Flex, we don’t need to update our downloads page because the binary on
dist/mirrors works if you unpack it yourself and run Ant, so the Installer
makes it a bit different.  No flex.a.o page is going to point there, but
the Installer app you downloaded from flex.a.o will point there.

Maybe that’s a better question: are their policies about where and to what
the binary links on a project’s download page can point?  Can it point
outside the ASF to stuff that wasn’t generated at the same time as the
source that was voted on?

-Alex



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