Re: Question about the new 3rd party software policy and standardization across the distro

On Sat, Sep 24, 2016 at 03:44:55PM -0400, Ben Rosser wrote:
> Let's suppose I submit this repository to consideration for inclusion in
> Fedora Workstation, so that if someone searches for "Dwarf Fortress" and
> consents to be shown nonfree, third-party software, they can optionally
> enable my repository and install my RPMs. However, it does not meet the
> guidelines for inclusion on other editions, and I'm not interested in
> fixing that for whatever reason. But that's okay, because if someone
> _really_ wants to run this game on another edition, they can run "dnf
> thirdparty enable tc01/dwarffortress", or something like that, provided
> they know the repository exists.

So far, so good. I don't know if anyone is working on anything like the
"dnf thirdparty" thing you suggest, but it seems reasonable enough.

> Now let's suppose someone _else_ wants to package the same game, but for a
> different edition. However, their package chooses to put game data in, say,
> ~/.local/share/dwarffortress/, and ships with a slightly different set of
> associated utilities. (Or perhaps different versions of said utilities).
> Their repository is approved though, because it meets the guidelines for
> the other edition.

This is one of the reasons we didn't want significant overlap in the
targets for the different editions. However, if we get into *spins*
(where overlap is fair game!) approving external repos, I can see the
potential for a mess developing.

[...]
> Now, possibly when the second person proposed the repository shipping the
> same software for review, the reviewer _should_ have said "hey, Workstation
> already signed off on a third-party repository for this software, why don't
> you try to collaborate with them", and only approved the second repository
> should there have been some fundamental reason that reconciling the two
> repositories was impossible (differing package formats for each edition,
> etc). Maybe that is what will happen, or perhaps this is a problem fixable
> by some sort of repository review tool that doesn't need policy. But this

The above seems like a decent policy if it turns out to be needed.

--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm@fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader
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