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Fedora-Retired-Packages

Summary

All retired packages are obsoleted by fedora-retired-packages.

UPDATE: I am taking back this proposal. I will propose new one, based on the gathered feedback.

Owner

Current status

  • Targeted release: Fedora 33
  • Last updated: 2020-06-23
  • FESCo issue: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
  • Tracker bug: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
  • Release notes tracker: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>

Detailed Description

Right now fedora-obsoletes-package retires packages which cause an issue during an upgrade. We do nothing about all other retired packages. Now imagine the following story (it already happened many times):

We have package "foo". It is a leaf package. No one requires it. It uses just basic libraries. A user installs it during F32 lifetime.

Around F35 the upstream dies. Around F37 Fedora maintainer retires the package (or orphan and it later become retired).

Because the package is a leaf package, it causes no pain during upgrade F37->F38. Not even during upgrade to F39, F40, F41, F42. And then during upgrade to F43 it suddenly causes a problem. But because it is .fc37 everyone will hesitate to add it fedora-obsolete-packages.fc43.

Additionally, during F38-F43, users may expect that their system is fully updated and they have no security issues. But it is not true about package "foo", which no one maintains. And users are not aware of that because he does not follow fedora-devel mailing list. Obviously.

What I propose is: As part of the retirement process we add the to fedora-retired-packages: 

 Obsoletes: foo < %{latestversion+1}

And during upgrade from F37->F38 the package will be removed.

If the user wants to preserve the package (e.g., because it moved to Copr), he simply uninstalls and protects the installation of fedora-retired-packages. But that will be an informed decision.

The benefits are: 

* we do not leave unmaintained packages on a user's machine.
* We make sure that archaic packages do not break upgrade between two versions of Fedora.

Feedback

After discussion with fedora-obsolete-package maintainer I filed this Change proposal to include a wider audience.

See relevant thread on devel mailing list.

User's feedback on Phoronix

Feedback on fedora-devel mailing list.

Benefit to Fedora

* We do not leave unmaintained packages on a user's machine.
* We make sure that archaic packages do not break upgrade between two versions of Fedora.


Scope

  • Proposal owners:

Create package fedora-retired-packages as sub-package of fedora-obsolete-packages BZ#1816532 Edit https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_remove_a_package_at_end_of_life#Obsoleting_Packages guidelines with:

The retired package should be obsoleted by one of: 

* fedora-obsoleted-packages - if the package can cause problem during upgrade to next version of Fedora
* fedora-retired-packages - in all other cases

It is enough to open an issue on https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/fedora-obsolete-packages


  • Other developers: N/A (not a System Wide Change)

No other work should be necessary.

This is optional. I may work with rel-eng to change https://pagure.io/releng/blob/master/f/docs/source/sop_retire_orphaned_packages.rst to automatically create PR for fedora-obsolete-packages

  • Policies and guidelines: N/A (not a System Wide Change)

As stated above https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_remove_a_package_at_end_of_life#Obsoleting_Packages will need an update.

  • Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)

Upgrade/compatibility impact

During an upgrade, all retired packages will be automatically removed.

User may opt-out by: 

$ cat /etc/dnf/dnf.conf
[main]
...
exclude=fedora-retired-packages


How To Test

1. Upgrade to next version of Fedora. 2. Check all retired packages are removed.

User Experience

- Packages that are no longer maintained are removed during a distribution upgrade.


Dependencies

This update has no dependencies on any other package.

Contingency Plan

  • Contingency mechanism: Drop fedora-retired-package. Or remove Obsoletes from this sub-package.
  • Contingency deadline: Beta freeze
  • Blocks release? No
  • Blocks product? None

Documentation

TBD

Release Notes

TBD

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