On Tue, Sep 6, 2022 at 2:29 PM Ben Cotton bcotton@redhat.com wrote:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/NodejsRepackaging

This document represents a proposed Change. As part of the Changes process, proposals are publicly announced in order to receive community feedback. This proposal will only be implemented if approved by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee.

== Summary == We are reworking the Node.js packaging to make Node.js versions available as parallel-installable packages.

So, I'd like to give an update here and address potential issues that I discovered this week surrounding the upgrade path.

First and most exciting: I've got the packaging work for Node.js 16 and Node.js 18 in good shape and it can be tried out by using my COPR at https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/sgallagh/nodejs-alternatives/ (`dnf copr enable sgallagh/nodejs-alternatives`) on x86_64 systems. Thanks to the input of folks on this thread, I've now put together parallel-installable versions, any of which can provide the /usr/bin/node by installing the appropriate `nodejsXX-interpreter-default` package. I've also got the dependencies established in such a way that a fresh install of `dnf install nodejs` on releases will result in automatically installing the latest stable version that was available at the Fedora release's Beta Freeze. (So for F38 it will be Node.js 18, for F39 it will be Node.js 20).

On upgrade from Fedora 37 (which has nodejs == 18.x) to Fedora 38, the nodejs18 package will Obsolete the nodejs package. On upgrade of the same system to Fedora 39 later, it will continue on the Node.js 18 package. To switch to the newer version, the user will need to manually run `dnf swap nodejs18-interpreter-default nodejs20-interpreter-default). While this may seem unexpected behavior, I feel that it's better to maintain compatibility on upgrade with any applications in use rather than to force the upgrade unless the current version is going out of support.

When a Node.js release goes out of support, we have a question to answer: do we Obsolete it with a newer version? If so, which one? The most recent version or the oldest one? It will not be 100% compatible in either case. Do we Obsolete it with fedora-retired-packages? Do we just leave the packages in Fedora forever (possibly patching the `/usr/bin/node` binary to warn that it's out of support)?

There's another potential upgrade issue: We have multiple choices of how to upgrade from the nodejs package to the nodejsXX packages: 1) Upgrading from either F36 or F37 will result in you getting Node.js 18. (This method is closest to how things worked prior to this Change, where the nodejs package would just get updated to the latest stable release) 2) Upgrading from F36 will move you onto nodejs16 in F38. Upgrading from F37 will move you onto Node.js 18 in F38. (This method maintains compatibility with applications running on the current system) 3) Upgrading from F36 or F37 will *remove* the nodejs package and the user will need to manually select one to install. (This method has increased friction, but more user choice) 4) Upgrading from F36 or F37 will leave the existing nodejs package on the system, receiving no updates. Users of F38 will need to manually remove and install a newer version. (This method is high-friction, offers nothing over any of the others and potentially leaves people vulnerable)

With options 1), 3) and 4), we can make the change in F38 exclusively. However if we want to do 2), we *also* need to either backport this Change to Fedora 37 and Fedora 36 because otherwise we would have to continuously update the Obsoletes: values in F38. With 1) I can update the Obsoletes: to just treat any Node.js with an epoch < 3 as the trigger to move to nodejs18.

My questions to those brave souls who have read this far: 1) Which do you think is the best of the above options for upgrades to F38? 2) What do we do about future upgrades in the following scenarios: a. The user has nodejsXX installed as the default interpreter. The nodejsXX package is no longer available upon upgrade (EOL). b. The user has nodejsXX installed as the default interpreter. The nodejsXX package is available but non-default upon upgrade.

Thank you for reading to the end.