On disttags (was: Choosing rpm-release for fc1 and fdr add-on rpms)

[Alexandre Oliva]

On May 13, 2004, Axel Thimm <Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net> wrote:

>> => An apt or yum based upgrade from FC1->FC2 will fail to pickup this
>> FC2 package without Axel having any possibility to do anything about it.

> Axel could package perl-XML-Writer for FC2 for instance, or the person
> inside Red Hat should have picked a higher release number than already
> available. Which _is happening_, indeed!

But a Fedora Core packager can't possibly monitor every single RPM
repository in existence.  Sure s/he can monitor the major ones, but
that doesn't cover, for example, private repos that aren't available
outside.  The packaging guidelines are useful for such private repos
as well, such that private packages.  And if it's good for private
repos in the sense of getting a clear upgrade path, it's good for
public repos in the this sense as well.

Using 0.<buildnumber> for Extras-like packages is a very simple way to
ensure that, if the package ever makes it to the Core, there will be a
clear upgrade path.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva             http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist  oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}