I've tried to mostly stay out of this discussion because I to *NOT*
consider myself an expert.

I've been a Fedora package maintainer for several years now and have
learned more than I ever thought I would but I am not:
- a programmer
- an expert git user
- a *nix guru

>From my simplistic point of view I basically have two workflows:

- An end user application which I keep updated to the same version across
all supported Fedora releases (including EPEL where appropriate)

This obviously has the highest likelihood of having conditionals,
especially with an EPEL branch. I pretty much feel the same as Kevin here.
I merge all the branches, otherwise I have to fake upload sources multiple
times, let it calculate the hash and figure out it's already uploaded which
just seems silly, or maybe checkout "sources" from the master branch which
I have learned how to do, but again, I'm not a git expert and to my
knowledge this isn't documented.

The wiki even suggests the method Kevin and I use as the "proper" way...
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Package_maintenance_guide#Working_with_branches

- A library where I generally don't push major updates across branches
(without a really good reason)

The best personal example I can think of is OpenImageIO, currently rawhide
is on 1.8.x and Fedora 26 & 27 are on 1.7.x, and EPEL 7 is on 1.5.x, but
was on the same series as Fedora a few releases ago.

Here I only fast-forward merge across branches on the same series/ABI
version, but in the past it included EPEL which means you're more likely to
carry "%if %{rhel}" type conditionals.

If you want packagers (especially those like myself that aren't in IT for
$DAYJOB) to act differently, then the best way is to make sure the workflow
is well documented and that it's the path of least resistance.

As far as obsolete conditionals, I don't personally proactively scrub my
spec files until an update is needed. Here it's would probably be best to
create some automated detection and file a BZ against the package. Maybe
conditionals for Fedora versions N-2 (some people choose to support the
most recently EOL'd version for a little while) and EOL'd EL releases.

Thanks,
Richard
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