Explicit requires vs. auto library requires, and fc3/devel versioning

[Michael Schwendt]

On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 07:52:38 -0600, Rex Dieter wrote:

> Tom 'spot' Callaway wrote:
> > On Mon, 2005-03-21 at 14:24 +0100, Dag Wieers wrote:
> 
> >>>IMO, disttags are the easiest way to accomplish this. (and further, IMO,
> >>>extras should *always* use dist tags, but I doubt that will happen)
> 
> > The reason I tried to hash through a disttag standard on the -packaging
> > list was so that people who wanted to use them could have a unified
> > method of doing so.
> 
> Fabulous.  That's a start.  Looks like another list I need to join.
> 
> > However, as long as I'm still breathing, it will never be mandatory.
> 
> If a package in Extras is for only 1 FC release, I'd agree with you.
> 
> However, I, and pretty much everyone I know who maintains add-on 
> repositories that support multiple rh/rhel/fc releases, feel strongly 
> about disttags (or in the very least *use* them): distags are (should 
> be) neccesary, add value, and don't hurt anything.

With packages maintained in CVS, the situation has changed. You need to
keep multiple branches in sync manually (FC-2, FC-3, devel) anyway. You no
longer build one src.rpm for multiple platforms. If at all, dist tags
ought to be added by the build system (e.g. via the %{?disttag} macro)
with the same mechanism also being implemented in Fedora Core's build
system (so e.g. packages moved from Core into Extras and vice versa don't
disturb eachother in V-R).