yum, and 2 packages that provide the same thing

[Mike Cronenworth]

-------- Original Message  --------
Subject: Re: yum, and 2 packages that provide the same thing
From: Stephen Warren <s-t-rhbugzilla at wwwdotorg.org>
To: Development discussions related to Fedora <fedora-devel-list at redhat.com>
Date: 04/18/2008 02:03 PM
> That's fine. I (personally at least) am fine with things the way they are.
> I was just hoping to be able to "dot the i's" by solving this one last
> niggling point. If there simply isn't a solution, then that's the way it
> is.
> 
> But, I do just want to point out one persistent misunderstanding that I
> think you have.
> 
> I wasn't hoping yum would compare package names unison213 and unison227
> and pick the later one.
> 
> Rather, I was hoping that since I'd asked to install "unison", and 2
> packages both had virtual provides for "unison" with differing version
> numbers, then yum would pick the package with the higher version number
> for that virtual provide, solely based on the virtual provide version
> values.
> 
> Please note that in the virtual provide for "unison", there are no funny
> version numbers encoded into the package name part; both provides are just
> "unison", with versions 2.13.xxxx and 2.27.xxxx.
> 
> I'd consider the current situation identical to there being two packages
> named "foo" and "bar", each virtual providing "baz", one proving baz==1,
> the other baz==2.
> 

Wasn't it the purpose of naming packages "foo-compat-version" so you 
could have mulitple versions installed? It seems very silly to have the 
version hardcoded with the package name. Just my lame opinion...

Mike