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

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 06:55 -0400, Jesse Keating wrote:
> On Thursday 29 March 2007 02:53:04 Michael Schwendt wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> I see criticism here for how we use the buildsystem, but I don't see an actual 
> opinion as to making these macros work on the installed system.
OK you want some critical remarks:

- in a proper implementation, all "redhat" macros should be encapsulated
into "target" files (/usr/lib/rpm/<target>)

- whether the build-sys macros are being merged into redhat-rpm-config
doesn't matter much, because redhat-rpm-config already kills rpmbuild
"--target"

- All "vendor" macros are potentially harmful (Once they are in, you
almost never can get rid of them). The buildsystem macros add further to
this pollution.

> I assume from your last sentence that you're in favor, but I'd rather not make 
> assumptions.

Ralf