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diff --git a/zarb-ml/mageia-dev/2011-December/010402.html b/zarb-ml/mageia-dev/2011-December/010402.html new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b3ecf781e --- /dev/null +++ b/zarb-ml/mageia-dev/2011-December/010402.html @@ -0,0 +1,144 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> +<HTML> + <HEAD> + <TITLE> [Mageia-dev] How broken are RPM dependencies allowed to be? + </TITLE> + <LINK REL="Index" HREF="index.html" > + <LINK REL="made" HREF="mailto:mageia-dev%40mageia.org?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BMageia-dev%5D%20How%20broken%20are%20RPM%20dependencies%20allowed%20to%20be%3F&In-Reply-To=%3C20111214003125.GA19369%40coneharvesters.com%3E"> + <META NAME="robots" CONTENT="index,nofollow"> + <META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"> + <LINK REL="Previous" HREF="010553.html"> + <LINK REL="Next" HREF="010405.html"> + </HEAD> + <BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff"> + <H1>[Mageia-dev] How broken are RPM dependencies allowed to be?</H1> + <B>Dan Fandrich</B> + <A HREF="mailto:mageia-dev%40mageia.org?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BMageia-dev%5D%20How%20broken%20are%20RPM%20dependencies%20allowed%20to%20be%3F&In-Reply-To=%3C20111214003125.GA19369%40coneharvesters.com%3E" + TITLE="[Mageia-dev] How broken are RPM dependencies allowed to be?">dan at coneharvesters.com + </A><BR> + <I>Wed Dec 14 01:31:27 CET 2011</I> + <P><UL> + <LI>Previous message: <A HREF="010553.html">[Mageia-dev] pixmap +</A></li> + <LI>Next message: <A HREF="010405.html">[Mageia-dev] How broken are RPM dependencies allowed to be? +</A></li> + <LI> <B>Messages sorted by:</B> + <a href="date.html#10402">[ date ]</a> + <a href="thread.html#10402">[ thread ]</a> + <a href="subject.html#10402">[ subject ]</a> + <a href="author.html#10402">[ author ]</a> + </LI> + </UL> + <HR> +<!--beginarticle--> +<PRE>I raised a bug ticket on drakxtools (#3731) because the RPM in Cauldron +installs without complaints in Mageia 1 but won't work there because +it requires a newer version of perl. The perl dependency in the +RPM is listed as "perl-base" when it should really be something like +"perl-base >= 5.14.2" (Mageia 1 ships with version 5.12.3). The response +I got was that such an upgrade (from release to Cauldron) wasn't supported +and this bug was likely a wontfix. + +I looked for a policy that covers this kind of situation and found nothing +clear. The closest I found was this: + + Packages should only contain Requires if those are absolutely + necessary for the program to work correctly...Packages must not + contain explicit Requires on libraries except when absolutely + necessary. When explicit library Requires are necessary, there should + be a spec file comment justifying it...Packagers should revisit an + explicit dependency as appropriate to avoid it becoming inaccurate + and superfluous. + +What isn't in the policy is what "absolutely necessary" is. It is clearly +"absolutely necessary" from a technical perspective that the newer +drakxtools have the newer perl installed for it to work. But, is it +necessary to list that version dependency in the RPM? IMHO, it is, given +that the perl version in the currently-shipping Mageia distribution is +too old to support it. That seems to me to be the kind of use case for +which versioned requires were invented. + +The other argument would be that you shouldn't put any versioned +requires on packages that are shipping along with the dependent +package. In essence, as long as all the packages in your system come +from the same Mageia release, you'll be fine. I think this is much too +lax, and won't even really work on Cauldron because there can be so many +possible combinations of package versions. It could also break upgrading a +system in place to a new distro version, as urpmi could choose to upgrade +the dependent package first and leave the newer versioned dependency +until much later, leaving the system in a broken state in the meantime. +It also ignores one of the most powerful features of RPM and can end up +causing "DLL hell". + +What makes the most sense to me is to use versioned requires whenever +technically necessary, but put a limit on how old a version can be before +it's dropped. So, if one package absolutely needs a minimum version of +another, that version should be listed as long as an older version shipped +at some point in the past 3 years or 6 releases (or something along those +lines). After then, the version can be dropped in the spec file. Checking +for older versions that could be dropped could even be automated. + +That, to me, strikes a reasonable balance between maintaining flexibility +in being able to switch between package versions and maintainability of +the spec files and RPMs themselves. + +>>><i> Dan +</I></PRE> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<!--endarticle--> + <HR> + <P><UL> + <!--threads--> + <LI>Previous message: <A HREF="010553.html">[Mageia-dev] pixmap +</A></li> + <LI>Next message: <A HREF="010405.html">[Mageia-dev] How broken are RPM dependencies allowed to be? +</A></li> + <LI> <B>Messages sorted by:</B> + <a href="date.html#10402">[ date ]</a> + <a href="thread.html#10402">[ thread ]</a> + <a href="subject.html#10402">[ subject ]</a> + <a href="author.html#10402">[ author ]</a> + </LI> + </UL> + +<hr> +<a href="https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev">More information about the Mageia-dev +mailing list</a><br> +</body></html> |