[packagers] The demise of the repotag

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

On Saturday, 21 April 2007 at 02:56, Kjeldgaard Morten wrote:
> >
> >If the new fftw3 is not compatible with fftw2 (soname change), then
> >it shouldn't be possible to upgrade it because it'd break  
> >dependencies.
> >That is, rpm would say that there are broken dependencies, because
> >package xxx requires libfftw.so.2.
> 
> Say I have installed fftw from RPMforge, which is version 2, and I  
> have no packages that depend on fftw (or libfftw.so.2), then fftw  
> will be upgraded whenever it becomes available in version 3. However,  
> people may have locally compiled software which links to the shared  
> library libfftw.so.2 and when that is suddenly not there, the  
> application breaks.

Well, that's what happens when you upgrade to the next major version.
Same thing happened with qt-1.x -> qt-2.x -> qt-3.x.
Nobody screamed bloody murder there. qt was always the latest version
and compat packages were provided.

> >In Fedora, we provide compat-* packages in that case, because the rule
> >is that package named fftw should be the latest release and any older
> >non-conflicting releases should be packaged as compat-fftw, possibly
> >with a number (compat-fftw2, for example).
> 
> And that rule is set in stone? I hope not, because it is *really*  
> dumb, complicated and un-intuitive for users.

I, on the other hand, think it's straightforward and intuitive, actually.
We have to agree to disagree.

Note that fftw-3.x is called just that, even on its own website.
If it was fftw3-3.x, then you might've had a point.

> Besides, noone else in the world besides Fedora uses it.

Well, IIUC at the time fftw was being packaged, 3.x was the latest
version, so according to the guidelines, it was OK. See above, too.

Many packages have similar problems. Take qt, for example. Or automake,
db, or any of the others.

> >Then, with both fftw-3.x and compat-fftw2-2.x in the repo, an  
> >upgrade would go smoothly, I imagine.
> 
> Not if you have locally compiled software, that rpm knows nothing  
> about, as described above.

Watch your upgrades then - is all I can say.

> >That's why we're working together to create ONE third-party repo.
> 
> That's going to be hard if your approach is a set of rules that can't  
> be changed.

Nothing is set in stone, but the important thing is that everyone
follows the same guidelines. Consistency is good. Exceptions should
be allowed only when absolutely necessary.

Regards,
R.

-- 
Fedora Extras contributor  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DominikMierzejewski
Livna contributor http://rpm.livna.org MPlayer developer http://mplayerhq.hu
"Faith manages."
        -- Delenn to Lennier in Babylon 5:"Confessions and Lamentations"