Why are RPM's distro specific?

[Gene Heskett]

On Wednesday 19 January 2005 23:10, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
>Michael A. Peters wrote:
>> On 01/19/2005 05:42:24 PM, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
>>> Out of curiousity, I'd like to know why RPM's are, or at least
>>> some are, distro specific? That would be with the obvious
>>> exception of distro specific apps.
>>
>> It usually has to do with different config file locations -
>> something the LSB is working to resolve, or with different
>> versions of shared libraries - in which case often times, it is
>> often just a matter recompiling the src.rpm on the target distro.
>
>The problem of different paths seems trivial. Why can't an RPM
> simply reference $CONF_FOLDER for example, and then let the machine
> on which the rpm is unpacked tell it that $CONF_FOLDER = '/etc' ?

That may well work for a src rpm that you have to build, but with 
ready to run object codes in the archive, all bets would be off.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
99.32% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
Yahoo.com attorneys please note, additions to this message
by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2005 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.