[CentOS-devel] Confusing package versioning

Dag Wieers

dag at wieers.com
Thu May 5 11:17:23 UTC 2011


On Thu, 5 May 2011, Jean-Marc Liger wrote:

> Le 05/05/11 11:59, Dag Wieers a écrit :
>>  On Wed, 4 May 2011, Johnny Hughes wrote:
>> >  On 05/04/2011 10:45 AM, Dag Wieers wrote:
>> > >  On Wed, 4 May 2011, Karanbir Singh wrote:
>> > > >  On 05/04/2011 02:35 PM, Ned Slider wrote:
>> > > > >  In such cases, would editing the SPEC file release line be the 
>> > > > >  lesser of
>> > > > >  two evils?
>> > > >  maybe but it would convey the wrong message.
>> > >  It depends on what message you want to send. Obviously Ned is confused 
>> > >  by
>> > >  how it is done now, and it makes it hard for people to match upstream
>> > >  packages with CentOS packages.
>> > > 
>> > >  Despite the technical reasons, if the message is to confuse those 
>> > >  users,
>> > >  you are on the right track.
>> >  We have been doing this exactly the same for 8 years.
>>  Since 8 years ago some things have changed. 8 years ago there was no
>>  %{dist} tag. When there was a disttag, it used to be a fixed tag (eg.
>>  .el5), not el5_2.
>> 
>> >  There is no reason to reinvent the wheel here.
>> > 
>> >  It is very simple ...
>> > 
>> >  1.  If we do not change a package, it will have the exact same dist tag
>> >  as upstream.
>>  So a %{dist} with .el5_2 stays .el5_2 on CentOS. No problem there.
>> >  2.  If we do change a package, then the dist tag will always be 
>> >  .el5.centos.
>>  So a %{dist} with .el5_2.4 becomes .el5.centos.4, and there is no visual
>>  indication that both packages are related. Whereas .el5_2.centos.4 or
>>  .el5_2.4.centos would have been a more appropriate, and more correct (wrt.
>>  to depsolving) solution.
>>
>>  In the above example you may have noticed that .el5_2.4>  .el5.centos.4,
>>  while .el5<  .el5.centos
>> >  This is not confusing, and is exactly what we have been doing since we
>> >  stood up CentOS.
>>  With the difference that things have changed in the meantime which makes
>>  it confusing that httpd-2.2.3-45.el5_6.1.src.rpm on RHEL5 becomes
>>  httpd-2.2.3-45.el5.centos.1.src.rpm on CentOS5.
>
> The most important thing is RHEL5_X now sligthly differs with RHEL5_Y, and 
> this may affect compatibility, like with the last mod_nss release.
> So I have an interest to immediatly visualise that my foo package, modified 
> by CentOS, was rebuilt on el5_X rather than el5_Y.

I know, the CentOS developers are simply ignoring the relevance of this.

It seems to be their new credo.

-- 
-- dag wieers, dag at wieers.com, http://dag.wieers.com/
-- dagit linux solutions, info at dagit.net, http://dagit.net/

[Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors]


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