perl-devel will be removed from the f8 buildroots

[Chris Weyl]

On 7/2/07, Jesse Keating <jkeating at redhat.com> wrote:
> On Monday 02 July 2007 12:27:33 Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
> > I don't see anything wrong with a perl metapackage, perl-core.
> >
> > Would that be preferred to a yum group?
>
> I have a bit of a surface loathing of metapackages.
>
> Why is it that perl packages can't BuildRequire what they need?  Is there real
> good reason why a seemingly arbitrary rule like "don't BR 'core' perl
> packages" should continue to exist, especially now that there is no clear
> distinction of what is 'core' and what isn't?

Well, that's one of the things we're still -- slowly -- hashing out.
The perl packaging practices evolved through practical application
over years, before fedora.us even.  It may seem arbitrary, much as
"GPL or Artistic" not "Artistic or GPL" is, but consensus was reached
on this point a _long_ time ago.  Changing this practice, as we're
currently being forced to at some level, is causing pain and cannot
just be done overnight.

It'll take time for a new consensus to evolve, which is both fine and
good.  Until that happens, we need to be flexible and accommodating to
different approaches; it's all part of the process.  Part of that is
providing a way to emulate the prior behaviour on one's system -- and
I can see applications outside packaging where Jane Q. Sysadmin may
need to ensure "core perl" is installed on all the systems she
manages.  And -- while I'm generalizing here, it's safe to say that
when people think of "core perl", they don't think of the way we're
splitting perl.  The distinction still exists, even if Fedora is doing
things differently.

                            -Chris
-- 
Chris Weyl
Ex astris, scientia