How important is comps.xml to us these days? Which packages should be in comps.xml and which not?

[Kevin Kofler]

Jesse Keating <jkeating <at> redhat.com> writes:
> I won't argue that it could use improvement.  I will however argue that
> the way to improve it is to have dialog with those using it and
> producing it, rather than deciding off project somewhere to just ignore
> it or apply filtering/modification to it without consulting the project
> at all.

Indeed. PackageKit should be fixed to use comps groups unmunged. Unfortunately, 
PackageKit's design is fundamentally broken and thus fixing this needs API 
changes. See this enum:
typedef enum {
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_ACCESSIBILITY,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_ACCESSORIES,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_ADMIN_TOOLS,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_COMMUNICATION,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_DESKTOP_GNOME,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_DESKTOP_KDE,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_DESKTOP_OTHER,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_DESKTOP_XFCE,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_EDUCATION,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_FONTS,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_GAMES,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_GRAPHICS,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_INTERNET,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_LEGACY,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_LOCALIZATION,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_MAPS,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_MULTIMEDIA,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_NETWORK,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_OFFICE,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_OTHER,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_POWER_MANAGEMENT,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_PROGRAMMING,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_PUBLISHING,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_REPOS,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_SECURITY,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_SERVERS,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_SYSTEM,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_VIRTUALIZATION,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_SCIENCE,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_DOCUMENTATION,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_ELECTRONICS,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_COLLECTIONS,
	PK_GROUP_ENUM_UNKNOWN
} PkGroupEnum;
This enum is all the way down in libpackagekit and the backends have no control 
over its contents. This is exactly how things should NOT be done! The list of 
groups should be determined by the backend (entirely, not as a bitfield of 
the "which of the groups in the enum do we support" type). It should be the 
backend's task to return a string and an optional icon (with a sane default, 
like that "metapackage" icon) for each of the groups which are actually 
present, they should not have to force their groups into a set of hardcoded 
integers (and throw away everything the enum doesn't cover). The current system 
is overly simplistic, inflexible and just plain dumb.

        Kevin Kofler