version/release identification for packages

[Gene C.]

On Tuesday 02 March 2004 22:47, Mike A. Harris wrote:
> 1) Automated packaging tests which are ran prior to a package
> being built in the buildsystem, and fail the package
> automatically if any common problem is detected of the nature of
> the above.  Not all scenarios are detectable most likely and so a
> list would have to be kept and updated over time I believe in
> order to be more useful.

To me this looks like it might be the only practical approach to minimizing 
these kinds of problems.  

This might be augmented by some guidelines for package developers to capture 
some of this knowledge which "experienced" developers know (they have hit the 
problem) but new developers do not (they have not experienced it themselves).  
I know I have seen some sort of discussion on Red Hat mailing lists of how 
rpm (and up2date I assume) selects new/old packages based on version an 
release specifications but that was a long time ago.  

With the changing set of Red Hat developers over time, some of this 
information needs to get captures in some guidelines to minimize the needs 
for new developers to rediscover such problems.  With the potential of the 
developer base expanding in the new Fedora process, this need for guidelines 
is more apparent (at least to me).
-- 
Gene