[Libosinfo] [PATCH] gnome: Add info for gnome-continuous 3.12

[Daniel P. Berrange]

On Thu, Oct 03, 2013 at 04:14:38AM +0300, Zeeshan Ali (Khattak) wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 7:43 PM, Zeeshan Ali (Khattak)
> <zeeshanak at gnome.org> wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 7:28 PM, Daniel P. Berrange <berrange at redhat.com> wrote:
> >> On Wed, Oct 02, 2013 at 07:03:36PM +0300, Zeeshan Ali (Khattak) wrote:
> >>> On Fri, Sep 27, 2013 at 12:50 AM, Zeeshan Ali (Khattak)
> >>> <zeeshanak at gnome.org> wrote:
> >>> > From: "Zeeshan Ali (Khattak)" <zeeshanak at gnome.org>
> >>> >
> >>> > gnome-continuous is continuous integration system so images produced by
> >>> > it track the git master of all modules and now that GNOME 3.10 is out and
> >>> > many projects have branched for 3.10 maintainance, these images are
> >>> > already 3.12 (3.11 at the moment but thats splitting hair I guess).
> >>> > ---
> >>>
> >>> So how about this patch?
> >>
> >> I have the same concerns about this that I do for the patch you
> >> proposed for Fedora rawhide. Namely that OS in libosinfo have
> >> some implied long term stability, but these are by definition
> >> moving targets.
> >>
> >> I understand your desire to include them though.
> >>
> >> Perhaps we should address this by adding a tag to the XML element
> >> indicating whether an OS is a formal release, or a snapshot ? That
> >> way apps can at least distinguish the two if they have a need to
> >> so, and we can declare that any OS database entry marked as a
> >> "snapshot" is liable to change arbitrarily over time.
> >
> > Sounds good to me, as long as we agree to add 'release-date' (if
> > known) as I'll need that to map a specific image to a specific OS
> > entry in the db in the app.
> 
> Oh and talking of release date, isn't a release date in future already
> an indication that this OS entry is a snapshot? Especially if we point
> this out clearly in the docs? If we don't add a separate tag, we'll
> not end up with entries marked as snapshots that are released already
> in case we forget to update them (which I'm sure we will).

IMHO predicting future release dates is a fool's errand. Every project
I know misses their predicted release dates on a non-negligible number of
occasions. That's why I think it is better to list it as a "snapshot".
I think it is actually a good thing that the libosinfo entry will remain
tagged as "snapshot" release until manually updated, because this is
also non-negligable liklihood we'll need to update URLs and other
metadata. eg, all the fedora repo / ISO URLs change between Beta and
GA, which will invalidate the pre-release XML.

Regards,
Daniel
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