is it possible to add ant-1.7.x to epel?

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

On 10.11.2008 18:05, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 05:57:46PM +0100, Farkas Levente wrote:
>> currently ant-1.6.5-2jpp.2 included in rhel while ant-1.7.0 in fedora.
>> since even 1.7.0 is almost 2 years old (1.6.5 is more then 3 years)
>> there are many java packages which requires at least version 1.7. the
>> same problem is not apply to junit since junit 4.x called junit4, but
>> ant 1.7 not called ant17 like in case of automake and autoconf.
>> so my question is there any way to somehow include ant 1.7.x in epel? is
>> it possible to add a package ant17 to epel? or is it against the epel
>> policies?
> I cannot speak for the project as a whole, but if ant17 doesn't
> conflicts with RHEL/EPEL packages, it seems to me that it could be
> acceptable -- especially if you can show what a package using ant17
> should use to build and select the corresponding ant and not the one
> from RHEL.

Well, until now the rule iirc basically was: If a software is in RHEL 
then it's not acceptable to also ship it in EPEL. That iirc is one of 
reasons why asterisk is not in EPEL, as it iirc requires a newer speex 
then the one that's in EL5. Details should be somewhere in the archives 
of this list.

But whatever: I'd say for the speex case it might be acceptable to 
include a newer speex in EPEL5, as long it doesn't disturb speex from EL 
or packages from EL that use the speex from EL5. And of course it's 
easier for everyone if the speex in RHEL gets updated.

For ant I'm not that sure if packaging a newer version is wise or not, 
as I'm not familiar enough with it. But I tend to say "that way lie 
dragons", as it's hard to draw the line where to stop with it -- 
otherwise we soon get request to include openoffice3 or kde4 in EPEL...

CU
knurd