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

[Michael Schwendt]

On Wed, 28 Mar 2007 19:34:05 -0400, Jesse Keating wrote:

> 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!

Adding macro usage without adding the macros to "something like
redhat-rpm-config" is not good.

Historically, the plan has always been to add the macros to such a
package. Hearing about "resistance" is news to me.

It is already unexpected and inconvenient enough to need "--define fedora 6"
or similar when rebuilding some packages.