Automatic BuildRequires; platform independent specfiles (was: mach needs "redundant" BuildRequires)

[Axel Thimm]

On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 09:22:36PM +0100, Stefan van der Eijk wrote:
> I've been advocating getting the right BuildRequires into the src.rpm 
> packages:
>    http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/BuildRequires
> 
> Due to the fact that -devel packages have no *automatic* dependencies 
> added to them, there is no significant dependency structure in them. 
> This makes getting the right BuildRequires for the packages nearly 
> impossible. This issue and the solution Mandrake chose to implement are 
> documented here:
>    http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/RpmDevelDependencies

This is very interesting stuff, especially deriving the recursive
-devel dependencies that way.

Is there a tool which can be used right away to generate these
Provides/Requires hooks? Does the Mandrake rpm carry such patches?

> Esspecially with the RpmDevelDependencies I think all distributions 
> would benefit from this, perhaps we can try to make it part of a 
> cross-distro rpm naming standard.

Yes! :)

But this is probably the wrong list to address these issues. There is
an rpm-devel list (http://rpm-devel.colug.net/, Cced) where embedding
of these Provides/Requires hooks could be discussed. There is also a
packaging list (http://www.freestandards.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/packaging),
which would look appropriate for such a discussion, but it looks quite
silent in the last year.

As for the common naming issue, you will get into serious trouble
convincing all parties. It has been tough to discuss this within the
Red Hat community, so adding Mandrake and SuSE will certainly not make
it easier ;)

Unless the external name is independent of the internal
Provides/Requires hooks, so that Red Hat can continue calling
zlib{-devel} that way etc., and some small monolithic packages can
remain monolithic and need not be split into devel/lib etc.

In this case you will probably be able to choose the internal naming
convention yourself, nobody would object. It seems that your scheme is
indeed independent of the external names and splitting of
sub-packages, isn't it?

Writing cross-distro specfiles! I am looking forward to that day! :)
-- 
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
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