[Fedora-packaging] Re: compat package policy

Ralf Corsepius rc040203 at freenet.de
Wed Feb 20 10:37:41 UTC 2008


On Wed, 2008-02-20 at 10:56 +0100, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> Le mercredi 20 février 2008 à 10:41 +0100, Ralf Corsepius a écrit :
> 
> > 2. It's technically counterproductive.
> > compat packages are band aids to help out in cases where "upgrading"
> > isn't easily applicable. Banning compat-*-devel packages voids this
> > aspect.
> 
> I've seem people proposing the creation of foo123 packages just to get
> around the "no devel for compat packages" rule proposed there.
Right, it's the escape to get around a silly proposal.

>  Don't
> tell me this is progress — those foo123 packages are going to stick a
> lot longer that compat packages would ever had.
They tend to stick longer, because they tend to be designed for parallel
installation, often because of technical needs.

compat-<package> (without devel) tend to be introduced as temporary,
legacy band-aid run-time packages.

> So the "no devel" rule is nothing but hiding problems under the carpet.
No. It's closing the eyes in front of actual problems.

> It does not make people less inclined to build against old versions, you
> just have bandaids that do not look like bandaids anymore.
You seem to be missing that it's almost always not a matter of will, but
a matter of technical requirement to ship compat*/foo123 packages, to
keep things going at all.

Or more abstract: Development is not a linear process, it has branches,
curves and edges. Banning *devel packages from "compat" packages is
trying to linearize development with a sledgehammer.

Ralf








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