[Fedora-packaging] Statistics on usage of disttags in Fedora Core and Extras

[Axel Thimm]

Hi,

I checked on the percentage of how many packages do use disttags these
days. And since I was at it I did some historical reseach to see the
tendency (I don't have access to Pre-Extras, so the Extras and Sum
slots for FC1 and FC2 are empty). The results are quite interesting:

release     Fedora Core       Fedora Extras       Sum
   1        2 /  936 <1%
   2        0 /  947  0%
   3        9 /  970  1%    711 / 1115 64%     720 / 2085 35%
   4       12 /  965  1%   1530 / 1786 86%    1542 / 2751 56%
   5       36 / 1157  3%   2686 / 2778 97%    2722 / 3935 69%
   6      336 / 1154 29%   3008 / 3068 98%    3344 / 4222 79%
rawhide   846 / 1218 69%   2833 / 2897 98%    3679 / 4115 89%

Some notes:

o Fedora Extras has always used more packages w/ disttags than w/o,
  the tendency up to its last incarnation in FC6 was steadily
  increasing until it reached 98% and remained at that level.

o Fedora Core has adopted disttags very late in comparison to Fedora
  Extras, but also has the steepest growth - since FC6 every third
  package has already been disttag'ed, by F7 it's more than two
  thirds. This is mostly due to the fact that previously the Fedora
  Core buildsystem would not support setting the disttag macros, while
  the Fedora Extras buildsystem did so for the very beginning.

o In their sum the disttagged packages have also reached the majority
  since FC4.

Conclusions:

o The disttag idiom was very successful, even though it is not
  mandatory it managed to be adopted in over 98% of Fedora Extras and
  69% of Fedora Core.

o From EPEL's POV, since it is a Fedora Extras rebuild for RHEL the
  package pool comes from the 98% of disttagged packages. Although RHEL
  is smaller than Fedora Core and one would assume some packages in
  EPEL coming from Fedora Core and thus getting at a lower than 98%
  share, current EPEL shows that almost all packages but some special
  ones like epel-release use the disttag.

o For any other application that would require mandatory disttags like
  for example disttags of fc7.89, fc7.90 etc for rawhide and test
  releases this setup is not very far away. Looking at the sum of
  packages, this could happen by F8 by itself (the sum gains at least
  10% each year and there are only 11% left).

Suggestions:

o watch the tendency and when it really reaches about 100% (e.g. F8)
  think about what gains mandatory disttags could bring us. If it is
  worth it fix the remaining few packages to use disttags (note: not
  all packages make sense to carry one, firmwares or XXX-release
  packages for example don't really need them)

o continue suggesting the use of disttags to new packagers - even
  though optional it should be the recommended way to package things
  up.
-- 
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/fedora-packaging/attachments/20070406/f3e3a85d/attachment.sig>