[Fedora-packaging] Re: Temporarily removing a sub-package

[Mike A. Harris]

Orion Poplawski wrote:
> I'm looking to remove the -mpi subpackage of paraview because it does 
> not build.  I've poked upstream to no avail, and I haven't been able to 
> figure out the problem myself.  If this gets fixed, I'd like to add it 
> back.
> 
> In the meantime, what kind of Provides/Obsoletes makes sense?
> 
> Provides: paraview-mpi
> Obsoletes: paraview-mpi < %{version}-%{release}

If the functionality of the -mpi subpackage is not going to
be provided at all (temporarily or otherwise), then neither.

Use an rpm macro to include/exclude the package:

%define with_mpi 0

Then wrap all areas of the spec file that concern the generation
of mpi functionality, installation, packaging, file manifest, etc.
with "%if %{with_mpi}" or "%if ! %{with_mpi}" checks as appropriate.



Having package contain Provides/Obsoletes for a previous subpackage
which provides some actual functionality, but which is not present
due to being disabled, means that software which requires the
functionality is lied to, and dependency resolution is tricked into
working, but there are runtime software failures or similar.

Not the correct way to go.