Fedora Extras 4 Package Build Report

[Jeff Spaleta]

On 7/28/05, dragoran <dragoran at feuerpokemon.de> wrote:
> libcddb and libcdio are still broken (don't let me install vcdimager
> from livna or freshrpms):

You need to be more careful about what you mean by 'broken' and where
you point the finger. In this case Fedora Extras is no longer broken..
the libcddb and libcdio packages form a self-consistent set. The
problem is the updated versions include new versions of the libraries
that are incompatible with the older livna and freshrpms packages. 
The 'breaking' of depchains across repository boundaries is very very
hard to avoid as long as Fedora Extras continues to use a rolling
release model that allows for updates to include new libraries that
change ABI and API. In this respect Fedora Extras shares some
characteristics with rawhide.
Once you start talking about dependancy problems across any repository
boundary things get really complicated. Core updates on occasion will
'break' Extras packages in a similar fashion until Extras catches up,
more so with Core development.

Notwithstanding a shift in the rolling policy, there are potential
ways to make it easier for 3rd party repos to catch up before an
ABI/API breaking update is pushed to the consumable FE tree.  There
could be a minimal amount of time that new updates sit in a "pending"
repo and 3rd party repos can run scripted runs of repoclosure against
FE and FE-pending as well as their own repos. Runs of repoclosure in
this way would give 3rd party maintainers a headsup about impending
dep chain breakages and give them a finite time to respond with
updates to their packages or to talk with the FE maintainer and work
out another arrangement like providing a compatibility package in FE
if that is the more appropriate solution.

-jef