[Fedora-packaging] Re: supporting closed source operating systems?

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 10:15:58AM -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
> So for the sake of argument, can we teach rpm to understand an arch
> called "mingw-ix86"
> such that it inherits the ix86 packages? We then construct a build
> environment definition in mock which includes the mingw-ix86 and ix86
> branches that will run on ix86 hardware and compile the mingw dll
> subpackages which are ifarch conditioned?

Jeff, you're not offering anything constructive here.  There's talk of
mysterious extra repositories, and invasive changes to RPM & mock, but
I'm no closer to understanding what purpose this achieves, or indeed
_how_ to achieve it.

I've presented a plan which involves adding 4 base packages to Fedora
(already built[*]) and some number of additional packages for
libraries (where 'some number' is approximately 7, also already
built[*]).  And I've found people who are willing to maintain these
packages in the long term.

Now, it's not perfect -- there are some things we need to resolve such
as the precise naming convention and how to stop the strip command
from damaging DLLs -- but it is nevertheless a plan that one can see
how to finish.  It doesn't violate any existing Fedora policy that I
can see, and I've even provided my arguments that it increases the
overall value of Fedora.

So unless you wish to provide a detailed plan -- not hand-wavey stuff
about Fedora providing 'extra infrastructure' or 'teaching RPM to
understand' things -- I really don't think I can sensibly continue
this discussion.

Rich.

[*] http://hg.et.redhat.com/misc/fedora-mingw--devel/

-- 
Richard Jones, Emerging Technologies, Red Hat  http://et.redhat.com/~rjones
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