Does end of life for Fedora 12 mean no more updates (as the announcement said) or does it really mean all the existing updates that preceeded the EOL date will be deleted? If the latter, where can I get a copy of all the old packages?

Yes the updates will be deleted. Server space is limited so the files must go. However, if you're quick you can check a local mirror for the updates directory and download the complete set of updates up to the last issued.
Simply drill down to the f12 directory under updates -
http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/14/
Then use the url from the address bar in the command below.

Here's the code I used for f12 from an Irish ISP.
That should be run from within the desired download directory. (so create your i386 directory first and create a separate x86_64 directory)
Bear in mind that each version (i386 or x86_64) will use over 8GB of disk space.

if you NEED to use OLD versions of fedora rpm's then you should NOT be using fedora in the first place
But a long life distro like RHEL or SELS/SELD


it will take time for the no longer supported versions of old programs to be removed from servers
but one by one the old EOL fedora 12 repos will fall .

the fedora 12 rpm's will NEVER be updates ever again
and NO security updates will ever be back ported to them -- for all intent they are DEAD. ( worm food)

This is not my decision. However, I am using this information to help justify to those making the decision that either Fedora should not be used, or upgrades should be performed frequently.

An upgrade was in fact intended. Fedora 13 didn't work. I don't recall the issue but was said to wait for Fedora 14. Fedora 14 does work. But right now we don't have the time to make that change (it's more than just installing a new version ... there is such a thing as regression testing).

Apparently that is already happening. One of the programmers trying to make some changes that needed another package got a 404 error in Yum. He ended up getting source and building.

Understood. Hopefully an upgrade will be soon. All that is needed right now is some occaisional packages so this round of application development can proceed. I was just hoping for something easier than building from source. Downloading 8GB of packages is not an option. I do have the DVD ISO for F12, but it didn't have the package they needed today.

unfortunately with fedora, using a EOL version the ONLY way to install anything is from source.
HOWEVER at some point a newer version of some lib or something will require so many prerequisites ,to be built from source ,that you will end up building the current version of fedora from scratch .

don't get me wrong i like fedora BUT it is a very fast moving target and any project built around it MUST move just as fast .

Post # 2
No. That's not correct. Old saved updates Fedora 7....12 here
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pu...linux/updates/

And : Old saved updates Fedora 1....6
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pu.../core/updates/
..

The original F12 repo is still working. In say six months,
when it stops, just make "baseurl=" point to the old archive 'url'.
And # 'yum install' will work "forever".
..

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Which is pretty pointless if there are no new updates. The full install DVDs and up to current updates are there now.
And it's not necessary to download all the update packages from a mirror as you can browse for the package you want, but they will get deleted from the mirrors, and downloading individual update packages is not recommended as you will then enter dependency hell.

BTW, I didn't download all the updates for my own future purposes. I originally did it as a more convenient way to install/update machines on slow net connections, by making a DL DVD of updates available together with an install DVD. My own machine is up to date.

I don't believe any yum update will work once the repodata itself is moved to archive.

Even Fedora 10 will show "Update messages" with the 'baseurl'
pointing to the archive.

..

While the base (from Fedora proper) packages will stick around (sometimes moved) packages from other repos (atrpsm, rpmforge, etc) are generally deleted within six months(some sooner).