On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 8:58 AM, Tom Rini <[email protected]> wrote: > The TSC has discussed this item at the request of the community and has come > up with the following recommendation which we are looking for feedback > (positive/negative/neutral) before putting this up on the wiki. > > -------- Original Message -------- > Subject: Re: Discussion: Version retention policy in oe-core > Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 15:05:25 -0600 > From: Mark Hatle <[email protected]> > Reply-To: [email protected] > Organization: Wind River Systems > To: <[email protected]> > > This is a follow on to Tom's original post. The attempt is to merge his > original thoughts with my own. > > --- > > As has been discussed in a few places, there needs to be a policy that > is followed about how long to retain (or when to replace) old recipes > within the oe-core repository as well as what to do with older versions of > things. > > It is expected that OE will have a related meta-oe or similar layers which > older components can be moved into while they are still useful and desirable > to maintain. However, these will be alternative versions and not the "core" > version any longer. > > Within the oe-core we can divide the components into two classes. Critical > infrastructure components and standard components. The critical components > include the toolchain, autotools, and key libraries. Virtually everything > else fits into the standard components bucket. > > We also have use cases such as: > - Upstream provides provides support (new releases) and clear guidelines > on upgrading for version 4.0 (current), version 3.8 (previous and stable) > and version 3.6 (further previous, stable). Upstream is also working on > version 4.1.x (unstable, active development). > - Upstream provides no clear policy about what's supported other than > current. > - Community standards indicate a specific version should be used rather then > the latest for some reason > - An architecture requires specific versions. > > We would like to propose the following: > > The goal of oe-core is to remain a stable, yet up-to-date set of software > that forms the foundation of the Open Embedded world. While not everyone > will be able to agree on a broad definition of "stable, yet up-to-date" the > following guidelines will help define the rules for the inclusion and/or > replacement of different versions into the oe-core. > > First, each of the packages need to be divided into two categories: Critical > Infrastructure and Core components. If an item is neither of these, then > the oe-core is likely the wrong place for the component. > > By default we want to use the latest stable version of each component. The > latest stable version of each component is defined by the component's > upstream. When there is no clear policy from upstream we simply have to > apply best judgment. > > There of course will be exceptions to the default policy. However, when an > exception occurs it must be clearly stated and documented when and why we > did not use the latest stable version -- or why we may have multiple > versions available of a given component. This will allow us to reevaluate > the exceptions on a timely basis and decide the exception is no longer > reasonable. > > Most of these exceptions will be located in the critical infrastructure > components, specifically the toolchains. In many cases we will need to > support variants of these components either for stability or architectural > reasons. > > Another common exception is to meet specific policy or compatibility > objectives within the system, such as the need to support both GPLv2 and > GPLv3 versions of selected components. > > If multiple versions are provided, usually the latest stable version will be > preferred, however best judgment will be used to determine the preferred > version. > > As existing versions of removed, if they are still desirable, they should be > moved into meta-oe or a suitable layer. > > We also have the issue of upcoming development versions it is suggested that > upcoming development versions of software be worked on in specific > development layers until they have reach sufficient maturity to be > considered stable and ready for inclusion in oe-core. > > Related to this are: > - We want to encourage distributions that are tracking the latest to try and > stay with the latest. > - We want to encourage recipes which people are interested in to be > maintained long term to be maintained, long term, in meta-oe. > - We want to encourage distributions to work with and add to / maintain the > core rather than deciding we have too frequent of an unhelpful churn (which > is to say 4.0.1 -> 4.0.2 of $whatever is good, 4.0.1 -> 4.4.3 of $whatever > is not).
This feedback probably won't be helpful, but this seems like a sane plan all around to me. -- Christopher Larson clarson at kergoth dot com Founder - BitBake, OpenEmbedded, OpenZaurus Maintainer - Tslib Senior Software Engineer, Mentor Graphics _______________________________________________ Openembedded-devel mailing list [email protected] http://lists.linuxtogo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openembedded-devel
