[Fedora-packaging] are subpackages required for optional loadable libraries?

Toshio Kuratomi a.badger at gmail.com
Wed Feb 27 15:46:09 UTC 2008


Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> On Wednesday, 27 February 2008 at 03:55, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> [...]
>> So the questions I'd see us needing to address are:
>>
>> 1) What are the criteria to split a package into multiple subpackages as 
>> opposed to keeping modules in a single/few subpackage.
> 
> Plugins implementing the same functionality using different external libraries
> (database engine support plugins are a typical example) must be packaged
> separately. A developer testing if the software works equally well with all
> supported DBEs will just have to install all of them by hand. We'll assume
> he's competent enough to do it.
> 
+1

> If the plugins do different things, it should be left for the packager to
> decide. Meta-packages come handy here (and are my preferred solution).
>
Not sure here.  When coupled with the answer to #2 I think we should 
have some guidance (packager gets final say but still some guidance)

We want the packager to know that leaving multiple disparate plugins in 
a single package should have benefit to the end-user.  If it doesn't 
help the end user to have a single package then they need to break it 
up.  It can be a lot of work to package correctly but that is what the 
packager is agreeing to when they submit a package.

>> 2) When a subpackage is not split, should Requires be used to pull in all 
>> of the dependencies or should they be used to pull in none of the 
>> dependencies.
> 
> All, of course. Otherwise we end up with bugreports saying the plugins
> don't work (because we intentionally crippled them).
> 
+1

>> 3) What is the default level of functionality that should work out of the 
>> box?
> 
> That should be left for the packager to decide.
> 
I think we need guidance here as well.  For instance, if a web 
application needs a database to work out of the box but that database 
could be any of mysql, postgres, or sqlite, do we require that one of 
those be installed?

So... I don't see anything here that needs to go into the Guidelines but 
I do think there's some stuff that should be thought about and go on the 
wiki as recommendations of how to tell whether a subpackage needs to be 
made.

-Toshio

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