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How can we be sure that someone will maintain the packages until end of life of the distribution the packages were built for?

April 26, 2017built distribution life maintain Packages sure

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How can we be sure that someone will maintain the packages until end of life of the distribution the packages were built for?

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The only way to be sure is to do it yourself, which is coincidentally the reason EPEL was started in the first place. Software packages in EPEL are maintained on a voluntary basis. If you to want ensure that the packages you want remain available, get involved directly in the EPEL effort. More experienced maintainers help review your packages and you learn about packaging. If you can, get your packaging role included as part of your job description; EPEL has written a generic description that you can use as the basis for adding to a job description. We do our best to make this a healthy project with many contributors who take care of the packages in the repository, and the repository as a whole, for all releases until RHEL closes support for the distribution version the packages were built for. That is seven years after release (currently) — a long time frame, and we know a lot can happen in seven years. Your participation is vital for the success of this project.