Relationship to existing 3rd party repos/CentOS/SL?

[Dag Wieers]

On Thu, 19 Apr 2007, Tim Jackson wrote:

> Dag Wieers wrote:
> 
> > Still, nobody listens to the voice me or Axel represents. And I'm sure
> > opponents like to minimize what it represents or the value it has.
> 
> I don't think that's quite true. Many people, including myself, have expressed
> publically before how much they appreciate both the work (in terms of existing
> packages & support) and the input (in terms of knowledge) from yourself, Axel
> and others. The kmod debate may not have been much fun, and it didn't end up
> with the result you wanted, but even in that debate you will find many people
> appreciative of your experience with a large userbase.
> 
> There is nothing better than yourself & Axel (and all the others with similar
> experience) contributing to EPEL. I really would like for that to happen,
> because the end result is better when a whole group of people work together in
> collaboration and co-operation.
> 
> I also think you are over-personalising this by talking about "opponents" and
> suchlike. I can (respectfully) disagree with someone, but it doesn't mean they
> are an "opponent". Actually, many times we might be trying to achieve the same
> thing, we just have different opinions. Sometimes there is no right or wrong,
> just a matter of perspective.

With opponent there, I meant someone oposing the repotag idea. I am not a 
native English speaker.


> > Fact is that RPMforge and AtRPMS will now drop the repotag now that Fedora
> > rejected the idea. Have fun sorting through a mess where there are different
> > eg. clamav packages with the same version-release and different content.
> > That's what you get when you do not differentiate packages.
> 
> Personally I don't have a problem with this in the slightest, which is part of
> the reason why I am so ambivalent about repotags. I'm 100% sure that "EPEL
> doesn't have repotag" DOES NOT mean "Stuff you Axel/Dag". (Actually, I had no
> participation in the original debate, and I did not vote, so I'm commenting as
> an observer. But personally I think it is entirely up to you whether you use a
> repotag or not in your own private repo, I respect that decision either way,
> and I am quite happy both ways).

But you do not understand what the implications are. The people that voted 
did, or should have. And the signal this gives (knowing the implications 
and still not adding a repotag) is what makes this very negative towards a 
community that existed. EPEL is the newcomer here.

Both RPMforge and EPEL provide clamav packages. (RPMforge was providing 
them long before Fedora introduced them, but that's just history). Sadly 
Fedora introduced them completely different. Some subpackages are 
different in aim and content.

Without a repotag you get:

	EPEL:
		clamav-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
		clamav-data-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
		clamav-devel-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
		clamav-lib-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
		clamav-milter-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
		clamav-milter-sysv-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
		clamav-server-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
		clamav-server-sysv-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
		clamav-update-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm

	RPMforge:
		clamav-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
		clamav-db-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
		clamav-devel-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
		clamav-milter-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
		clamd-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm

How would Yum (or a user manually) make sense of this ? Packages may 
resolve to the wrong thing, but you don't know what is what because there 
is no unique identifier to match it with.

I can hear 2 things now: 'than don't drop the rf repotag' and 'another 
argument for not mixing repositories'.

And both comments would reveal the sorry state of the mind, because you 
simply do not consider the diversity and the fact that EPEL is just 
another repository.


> You & Axel appear to be implying that you removing repotags is some kind of
> threat, which is going to teach a lesson to some of the people who opposed it
> in EPEL.  Maybe it will, but personally I don't see it as a big deal either
> way. Again, I'm not actually trying to discuss the repotag issue here - just
> to point out that co-existence is mutual: nobody in EPEL can criticise you for
> removing repotags, but I've not heard from anyone that *wants* to criticise
> you. Perhaps I missed them, but I didn't notice anybody saying "hey, we don't
> need repotags, because we're special - but Dag does.". So, please, remove your
> repotag. If anyone in EPEL who opposed repotags in EPEL criticises you, then
> you can rightly claim they are hypocritical. But I suspect that nobody will
> actually complain. Well, time will tell.

Well, again, as a newcomer EPEL gives a bad signal. And the above example is 
one that is real.

Not addopting a repotag is saying to other repositories, we don't care 
about diversity. We are the one big repository that will rule everything 
and either you join or we'll crush you.

Not adopting a repotag is saying to users, hey, if you have problems, it 
is all your own fault. We told you not to mix repositories. You should 
stick to ours.

And you know what, in contrast to Fedora, with EPEL there is a clear need 
for the diversity. Should I stay with a specific version, or do I require 
the new functionality ? You can't have both in a single repository. Yum 
can't handle it.

 
> > Fedora/EPEL is actively making sure people cannot use packages from
> > different sources 
> 
> I don't think this is true.  However, I do personally keep my active use of
> repos to a minimum because I personally find that mixing of sources is
> incompatible with the reasons I'm using an enterprise distro - regardless of
> the respective quality of the various repos. However, I don't see anything
> proposed that actually *stops* people doing that if they really want.

That's fine. But EPEL will not be a solution to everything. And then we're 
not talking about people that use Yum and enable a complete repository. 
Then we may be talking about a user that NEEDS postfix 2.3 on RHEL5. Or a 
user that needs the latest lftp which EPEL does not provide.

Not having repotags makes it harder for users. But this is not about 
users, this is about politics and power plays. As a newcomer there is an 
interest of making the situation harder so that people move to EPEL.

Kind regards,
--   dag wieers,  dag at wieers.com,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power]