Provides/Obsoletes question

[Michael Schwendt]

On Tue, 16 Oct 2007 18:35:25 +0200, Jos Vos wrote:

> In RHEL5 (probably also in Fedora), pidgin obsoletes "gaim < 999:1"
> (epoch 999 !!!).  If someone can explain me why this is better than
> just obsoleting "gaim", please tell me.  IMHO, this only makes sense
> if a "gaim >= 999:1" might ever exist.  I don't think so :-).

Versioned Obsoletes are superior, because they occupy only a specific
EVR range of a package namespace. For your example of "gaim < 999:1",
you can reintroduce a package with the name "gaim" (suppose it's a
different piece of software) by giving it an EVR higher than 999:1.
On the contrary, the unversioned "Obsoletes: gaim" blocks re-entry
of a package with the name "gaim", regardless of its EVR.