rpmforge and {enterprise, } Extras (Was Re: Initial Proposal for doing Enterprise Extras=

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

Hi!

Reply out-of-order:

Jonathan Underwood schrieb:
> I realize that requirements of the new repository and build
> system are very very different,

Why? I can't follow you here. Building extras packages for RHEL/Centos
for Fedora Extras probably is nothing more then:

cp -r FC-3 EL-4
cvs add EL-4
cd EL-4
make tag build

after preparing the builders -- and that's should be quite easy, too.
The rules around a "Extras Packages for Enterprise Linux" is the most
complicated part AFAICS.

Anyway, now to the harder part of the mail. I hope to touch the correct
diplomatic tone for this (warning, that often does not work very well
because English is not my mother tongue)

> I've been following the discussions about the technical issues
> regarding having an Extras for RHEL, and a thought keeps recurring.
> Dag, Dries, Mathias Saou and a a handful of other people have been
> successfully shipping rpms for Fedora and RHEL (and others) for a
> while now.
[....]
> but really, wouldn't it be worth
> talking more with those guys, as I'm sure they've learnt a lot of hard
> lessons during their work, which this new project could learn from.

Well, Mathias Saou is an Extras contributor and Axel Thimm from atrpms
(he provides packages for RHEL as well) also.

Regarding Dag and Dries and/or the rpmforge project in general: I (and I
assume many other FESCo members and Extras contributors feel quite
similar) would be really really happy if those two and other rpmforge
contributors could participate in Extras.

But how to make that work? That's the big question, and I don't have an
answer.

Someone some weeks ago suggested to me in private that we should merge
"Fedora Extras" and rpmforge. That sounds like a good plan to me in
general. But a merge always must offer something to make both sides
happy. And I'm not sure Fedora Extras can offer enough to make them
happy (that's our fault, not theirs). And there are also different goals
in FE and rpmforge that will make a merge even more complicated -- I
won't go into the details here about the different goals because those
are dangerous grounds that can (and will) quickly lead to never-ending
flamewars.

Maybe someone neutral that's known and trusted on both sides could act
as middle man between FE and rpmforge. That middle man could maybe help
getting the goals and backgrounds of the different projects understood
on the other side. Maybe that could lead to a better cooperation or even
a merge in the long term. Any volunteers?

CU
thl