Axel Thimm wrote:
>>
>>> OTOH, yes, it would be so nice if all repos would be 100% compatible with
>>> each other. :-)
>> No it wouldn't because the reason you install something from a 3rd party
>> repo may be precisely because its differences.
>
> But that doesn't mean that it is incompatible. If repo X ships a
> rather non-enabled version of a package foo and repo Y an enhanched
> one with more options turned on or whatever, if repo X and repo Y had
> a compatibility agreement them Y's foo would not wreck havoc on an X
> system and vice versa.
OK, but if your package manager can handle the incompatible case, it
also won't surprise you when repo X updates their compatible but not
fully functional version before repo Y does.
> We're thinking of shipping several "different" packages in otherwise
> compatible subrepos, so there is a distinction between different and
> incompatible.
If the packages and all included files can be named differently, they
could simply co-exist, but that doesn't always work.
> Bottom line once again: It's about people working or not together even
> in different repos. And I know that if there is a compatibility issue
> in say KB, Dag, Dries, ... or ATrpms that I can contact the other repo
> and fix a solution (heck most of us even share the same bugzilla
> instance). That's certainly not the case with EPEL.
But it would be even better if we could live with the assumption that
repos will have incompatibilities, whether accidental or intentional.
Then it would become a choice of which to install and things wouldn't
break when somewhere else updates first. Then you could focus on making
your versions better instead of compatible - and the politics wouldn't
matter.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com