Request for a sponsor and a review of: pam_abl

[Paul Howarth]

Alexander Dalloz wrote:
> Am Mi, den 13.07.2005 schrieb Michael Schwendt um 14:31:
> 
> 
>>>That leads me directly to the question: is it necessary to test software
>>>builds on FC4 with it's latest gcc? 
>>
>>"Yes, of course!" to the latter question.
> 
> 
> Ok, will then have to freshly install a build environment based on FC4.
> 
> 
>>>>Specfile:
>>>>* Release should be 1%{?dist}
>>>
>>>Ok, so the dist tag seems to be mandatory, other than the wiki says.
>>
>>No, it isn't.
> 
> 
> Hm, for 2 rpms without dist tag set I got for both the feedback to set
> it. I thought at least for the keychain rpm, which just puts the shell
> script and man page into rpm the dist tag does not make much sense. For
> packages build against specific distribution version libs I think it
> makes sense to have an "indicator" like the dist tag in the package
> filename.

The requirement is to have the epoch-version-release for later 
distributions to be "later" than the epoch-version-release for earlier 
distributions, so that upgrades pick up the right package. The dist tag 
provides a convenient way of providing for this whilst being able to use 
the same spec file for each distribution. However, you could assign 
higher release tags for later distributions and that would satisfy the 
requirement too.

> A different question, but too regarding package naming. The pam_abl
> source code tarball is named by it's author
> 
> pam_abl-20050110-0.2.2.tar.gz
> 
> I initially thought it would be proper to set
> 
> %{name} -> pam_abl
> %{version} -> 0.2.2
> %{release} -> 20050110

Does upstream change both the date part and the version part when 
producing a new release? If so, I'd be inclined to skip the (IMHO ugly) 
date.

> Using the dist tag means that wherever %{release} should be used I
> instead have to use "20050110", like in Source0 or BuildRoot. I am on
> the right path?

Yes, that would happen. You could do this though:

%{name} -> pam_abl
%{version} -> 0.2.2
%{reldate} -> 20050110
%{release} -> %{reldate}%{?dist}

Source0: http://host/path/to/pam_abl-%{reldate}-%{version}.tar.gz

> Another issue with the %{release} is the way how to increase it for
> reflecting rpm changes. What would be the proper choice for %{release}?
> 
> %{release} -> 20050110-1%{?dist}

Better to use "." than "-" there I think.

> In this way? Or better to omit the date value and using a self chosen
> release number? What's the recommended way?

I'd do that as long as upstream isn't in the habit of releasing tarballs 
with a new date but the same version number.

Paul.