[CentOS-devel] Looking for input from EPEL

Wed Sep 1 16:40:50 UTC 2010
Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com>

On 9/1/2010 11:20 AM, Jeff Johnson wrote:
>
> Summary comments below:
>
>> package managers don't
>> and can't work with uncoordinated changes in the same namespace.
>
> FALSE.
>
> E.g. smart quite happily handles both *.deb and *.rpm (and 4 other
> formats) with zero coordination. Then there's PackageKit which also
> doesn't require package coordination.
>
> Please note that I did NOT say RPM in andy of the above. There are some
> rather simple things that can be done in the rpmlib "engine room"
> to avoid the need for "coordination".
>
> FALSE is the summary point.

How does it automatically handle the scenario where two different 
packagers build the same-named package at the same version rev in two 
different repos, and then they alternately advance the revs?  My 
contention is that it is impossible to handle this correctly for all 
possibilities of what might be the correct thing to do.  How does it 
handle the scenario where both supply the same-named library with 
different compile options and you have other packages that depend on 
both build types?  What about the simple case where the packagers have 
just abstracted different things out of the upstream config files into 
settings under /etc/sysconfig for RH-style startup so they break if you 
flip versions?

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com