Opinions: Providing "buildsys-macros" in the installed system

[Jesse Keating]

In our buildsystem we use a 'buildsys-macros' package that defines some things 
during the package builds, like the definition of %{dist}, and of %{fedora} 
or %{rhel}.  Now we're talking about adding even more macros to add 
convenience for packagers that are packaging the same thing for multiple 
Fedora releases and RHEL releases (Hurray EPEL!).

However, with more of these macros in use, the usage case of rebuilding the 
srpms on your local system starts to get harder, as these macros will be 
undefined and you'll have interesting results.  Perhaps surprising results.  
I propose we ship these macros in something like redhat-rpm-config for each 
release, so that when somebody is rebuilding a package on their system, the 
macros are defined correctly for whatever release they are running.  If they 
are rebuilding for another release/distribution, they really should be using 
mock, and having redhat-rpm-config define the right things within their mock 
chroot.

In the past I remember there being resistance to shipping these on the 
installed system, however my Test3 addled brain is not able to recall what 
those are.  Are there any differing opinions on this matter, anybody that 
disagrees with me?  I'd love to hear it and thought out reasons against 
taking the step.

Thanks!
-- 
Jesse Keating
Release Engineer: Fedora
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