[Mageia-dev] Lib policy change needed ?

Wed Jun 15 18:15:58 CEST 2011

On 15 June 2011 10:44, Christiaan Welvaart <cjw at daneel.dyndns.org> wrote:
+> On Wed, 15 Jun 2011, Dexter Morgan wrote:
+>
+>> the last BS breakage makes me thing that we should adjust our
+>> packaging policy and add only one lib per lib package.
+>>
+>>
+>> On our last BS breakage we had as error :
+>>
+>>
+>> A requested package cannot be installed:
+>> seahorse-2.32.0-2.mga1.x86_64 (due to unsatisfied libgp11.so.0()(64bit))
+>>
+>>
+>> because libgp11.so.0 was in libgcr0 but disappeared.
+>
+> This was of course a packaging error, the version postfix in the package
+> name should have been modified.
+>
+>> WDYT about this new policy ?
+>
+> Fine with me, always considered it strange when the lib version in the pkg
+> name does not correspond to major version of some of the libraries in a
+> package. I agree this policy change or clarification (if followed) will
+> likely prevent such mistakes in the future. And it should not cause any
+> problems since we have automatic library provides and dependencies.
+>
+>
+>    Christiaan
+>
+
+Splitting every single lib in a separate package isn't ideal, IMHO
+(just look at how many kde library packages we have).
+
+Libraries that have the same major from the same src.rpm should be in
+the same sub-package as much as possible (i.e. all glib-related libs
+in one package, extensions (e.g. nautilus extensions) could be each in
+a sub-package); and split only if something would require one lib but
+not another from that lib package, i.e. split when needed, not
+generally.
+
+For example look at Amarok:
+$ urpmf --sourcerpm :amarok | sort | grep lib
+lib64amarokcore1:amarok-2.4.1-0.mga1.src.rpm
+lib64amaroklib1:amarok-2.4.1-0.mga1.src.rpm
+lib64amarokocsclient4:amarok-2.4.1-0.mga1.src.rpm
+lib64amarokpud1:amarok-2.4.1-0.mga1.src.rpm
+lib64amarok-sqlcollection1:amarok-2.4.1-0.mga1.src.rpm
+lib64amarok-transcoding1:amarok-2.4.1-0.mga1.src.rpm
+
+every lib is in a separate package, even though:
+- Nothing else uses any of those libs other than Amarok
+- Amarok is linked against all of those libs and it wouldn't work if
+you uninstall any of them
+
+In such a case grouping all of them in one lib*amarok package would be
+easier, there'll never be any file conflicts when the mojor of any of
+them changes.
+
+P.S. I am not a packaging expert.
+
+-- 
+Ahmad Samir
+