Name is but sound and smoke (was: Freshrpms.net concerns.)

Axel Thimm Axel.Thimm at physik.fu-berlin.de
Wed Nov 12 17:19:36 UTC 2003


On Wed, Nov 12, 2003 at 02:49:45PM -0200, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> On Nov 11, 2003, Axel Thimm <Axel.Thimm at physik.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
> >> The idea (as I understand it) is that people want to easily have
> >> add-on packages in their system without a risk that this might modify
> >> core components.
> 
> > E.g. choose their stability level. So let's use stability criterions.
> 
> It's not really the same.
> 
> One of the points is at the time of reporting a bug.  Say I find a bug
> in Mozilla, or in mplayer.  Unless I can pinpoint which repository I
> got Mozilla from, or the exact dependency of mplayer that caused the
> bug, to figure out where I should report it, I'll be at a loss.

That could be an issue, and that's why a well considered versioning
scheme including origin tags (repotags) along with sane rpm -qi
contents is needed (and already provided by almost all repos).

> Being able to make sure that a certain package (along with all of its
> dependencies) is part of the Core makes it simpler to assert whether a
> bug is in the Core or not, as long as you stick to only Extras
> repositories.

Well, if bug reporting is the problem, then you first need to ban
kernel modules and any plugin-like rpms (e.g. all xmms/gkrellm/mozilla
plugins) as well into some non-Extras repository. Especially kernel
modules can be nasty, but a non-starting mozilla due to
mozilla-plugin-buggy also.

So should we set up "Fedora Kernel Modules" and "Fedora Plugins"? Or
better "Fedora Are-You-Sure-You-Want-THAT-rpm?"? ;)

> As soon as you introduce Alternatives, any hopes of easily
> identifying the source of a problem are gone, and this doesn't even
> get into inter-repository compatibility problems.

Are there any bugzilla entries referring to non-Red Hat repos at all
(or any significant number less than 10 ;)? The problem would not be
new, every non-RH repo I know of has been carrying upgrading
components since its birth.

So if this problem is not academic one would have the issues already
today in bugzilla. But I think that most people taking their time to
bugzilla do know where their packages came from. ;)

The fact is, that most non-Core components can potentially destabilize
the system in one way or another and moving parts out of Extras for
bugzilla/stability whatever concerns will leave you with an empty
"Extras" and a miriad of other banned subrepos.

The splitting scheme is flawed, believe me! Where are the people that
thought about this scheme? Why are they hiding? ;)
-- 
Axel.Thimm at physik.fu-berlin.de
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