[users] Clash of 2 SPF packages

[Dag Wieers]

On Thu, 4 Oct 2007, Hugo van der Kooij wrote:

> On Thu, 4 Oct 2007, Michael Mansour wrote:
>
> > > On Thu, 4 Oct 2007, Michael Mansour wrote:
> > >
> > > > > I need both Mail::SPF and Mail::SPF::Query for sa-update to work
> > > > > properly.
> > > > > (sa-update is part of spamassassin.)
> > > >
> > > > I'm not sure where you got this information from but it is completely
> > > > incorrect. I use sa-update and do not require both the packages you're
> > > > referring to, as a matter of fact, SpamAssassin themselves only advise
> > > > you to
> > > > use the perl-Mail-SPF (Mail::SPF) package since it follows the current
> > > > reference implementation RFC 4408, which Mail::SPF::Query does not.
> > > >
> > > > You can visit the SpamAssassin website for those details.
> > > >
> > > > In summary, only install perl-Mail-SPF from rpmforge and do not install
> > > > perl-Mail-SPF-Query.
> > >
> > > So sa-update as packaged in spamassassin is broken?
> >
> > Not at all, when you run:
> >
> > spamassassin -D --lint
> >
> > you'll see the same "require failed" message, yet that doesn't mean it's
> > broken and it doesn't mean you have to install it.
>
> In my vocabulary the words REQUIRE (in itself) and MUST (as in RFC usage)
> specify something which is not optional.

Unless require here means: require if functionality is desired. The fact
that it is allowed to fail to me proves that it is allowed to fail.

Which I suspect means that sa-update works without the functionality.


> If a program states a requirement for 2 mutaly exclusive modules then the
> program is not correct. In fact the term broken applies here in my view.
>
> If either of them does the job it should detect this and be content instead of
> stating that a requirement failed.

I agree that it is at least confusing and undesirable, but I only package
the software and providing both perl-Mail-SPF and perl-Mail-SPF-Query
offers choice that is spamassassin agnostic.

I don't think yum or apt-get will ever solve weird application
requirements and there will always be some effort by a sysadmin to connect
the pieces.

That said, I wouldn't mind removing spfquery from one of the packages in
order to allow both packages to be co-installed. I would prefer to remove
it from perl-Mail-SPF-Query. Anyone minds ?

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