Summary of the 2008-04-08 Packaging Committee meeting

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On Mon, 2008-05-12 at 21:11 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> I'm disappointed by the way this problem was handled. I'd like the
> people who were so quick to repeatedly diss the Java people in
> public,
> and who are asking of them a lot of work, to do them the courtesy of
> applying the same high standards to themselves, that is to say:
> – reach out to their communication forums (why should the effort
> always be one-way)
> — document properly in the wiki what are the exact drawbacks of
> using .jpp (it's *still* nebulous to me at least)
> – propose a solid long-term technical solution (pot, kettle, black,
> all
> this public outrage to propose a kludgy kludge as 'solution')
> 
> We're not so quick to mandate mass rebuilds when we have to do them
> ourselves.


A few points:

* I'm not mandating that JPackage change anything. This is specifically
targeted on handling the Fedora packages which are derived from JPackage
packages.
* We don't permit repotags in Release normally, because adding "noise"
characters into that field significantly complicates RPM package
ordering. They never should have been there in the first place, and
we're trying to work a solution for this.
* I'm willing to maintain this plugin as a long-term technical solution.
* I'm willing to rebuild all of the affected Fedora packages to resolve
this situation.

The approved JPackage naming exception says that when a technical
solution is found to make .jpp tagging obsolete for the purposes of
grouping excludes, the exception will vanish. I think we've done that,
insults and flames aside.

~spot