NVR bugs in rawhide

[Ralf Corsepius]

Michael Schwendt wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:48:11 +0300, Jussi wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, 2009-07-14 at 14:48 +0200, Michael Schwendt wrote:
>>> On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:21:28 +0200, Daniel wrote:
>>>
>>>>>> Release doesn't contain a %dist tag.
>>>>>>  - %dist is missing in Release: in spec
>>>>>>     
>>>>> Often on purpose. Not a bug.
>>>>>   
>>>> Can you be more specific, please? What's exactly the purpose?
>>> That %dist isn't used. There are various reasons why somebody may decide
>>> against using %dist. One example are noarch data packages that want to
>>> utilise koji build inheritance.
>> ... except that doesn't help anything.
> 
> ??  Let me be more clear then.
> 
> You don't need to drop %dist for koji build inheritance to work.
> 
> It just looks much cleaner to inherit foo-1.0-1.noarch.rpm for all
> newer targets

IFF "current rpm" is sufficiently compatible to the antique version of 
rpm a package has been built on.

If this doesn't apply you don't get anywhere.

This issue e.g. will hit when rpm should abandon supporting features, 
say md5 checksums, or when some standard macros should change (Some 
people might recall %mandir once having moved from /usr/man to 
/usr/share/man) ....

  -- than to inherit foo-1.0-1.fc9.noarch.rpm and have
> users scratch their heads (even if release notes mention that packages
> with old dist tags may be found in a new dist release).
> 
>> %dist should be used always.
> 
> No.  Particulary for noarch data packages, using %dist bears an
> additional risk. Because it becomes possible to tag a package on
> multiple branches and break inheritance by building for more than
> the oldest branch.
To me, this is not a risk, but a valuable feature.

> In other cases, for example, %dist suggests that a spec/src.rpm would be
> dist-independent and could simply be copied to multiple branches. That
> doesn't need to be true.
Well, a package is never distro independent, it is always distro 
dependent, because an *.rpm always has some distro specific rpm-setting 
built-in. Even noarch packages.

=> I agree with Jussi. Allowing people not to use %dist is not helpful. 
It's a booby trap which certainly will hit some day.


Ralf