perl, perl-devel, and missing config.h

[Robin Norwood]

Hi,

As part of the package review process, Tom 'Spot' Callaway reviewed
the perl spec file[1] to bring it up to Fedora's standards.  It needed
a lot of work.  So much work that Spot ended up essentially rewriting
it.  The new spec file is much cleaner and more correct, and Spot
deserves mad props for fixing it.

However, one change has been pretty controversial.  In accordance with
standard Fedora packaging, he split the C header files into a
perl-devel package.  These files aren't needed to run perl modules,
but they are needed to build many perl modules, both in Core and
Extras.  Unfortunately, when I accepted the new spec file and built it
into rawhide, I didn't think through the consequences fully, and we
ended up breaking a lot of builds.  It was generally not very obvious
*why* the builds were breaking, leading to much frustration[2].  Sorry.
:-(

Spot, Jesse Keating, and I have discussed the issue via email and on
fedora-perl-devel-list[3] - the three of us think this solution is the
right way to go, but several people on the list disagree.  So we're
going to hash things out there and decide what to do.  If you want to
follow the discussion, see fedora-perl-devel-list.  Otherwise, stay
tuned, and we'll keep you posted.

If you own a package that is failing to build in rawhide with errors
like:

"""
make[2]: *** No rule to make target
`/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/CORE/config.h', needed by
`Makefile'.  Stop.
"""

Then adding a BuildRequires: perl-devel will fix it for now - however,
we might decide to roll perl-devel back into perl or make some other
change that could make those changes unnecessary.

Thanks,

-RN

[1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/226276

[2] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/230608
    https://bugzilla.redhat.com/230406

[3]
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-perl-devel-list/2007-March/msg00009.html

P.S. - fedora-perl-devel-list is moderated, so if you want to be part
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subject line that your message is not spam.  ("Not spam", maybe. :-))

-- 
Robin Norwood
Red Hat, Inc.

"The Sage does nothing, yet nothing remains undone."
-Lao Tzu, Te Tao Ching