When %{?dist} tag is needed?

[Paul Howarth]

Yuan Yijun wrote:
> Hi, Warren
> 
> What I want to know is when to use %{?dist} tag and why only these
> rawhide rpms (see attachment) are still have an %{?dist} tag in its
> name, while others not. Is DistTag only valid for FE before Oct 2003?
> 
> http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2003-October/msg01152.html
> 
> C-4. Dist tag
> -------------
> In cases where the same SRPM and patchlevel is used between two or more
> distributions supported by Fedora, a dist tag is appended to the end of
> the release tag defined in C-2 and C-3.
> 
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageNamingGuidelines
> 
> Using the %{?dist} Tag
> -------------
> If you wish to use a single spec file to build for multiple
> distributions, you can use the %{?dist} tag in the Release field.
> Please refer to the DistTag documentation for the details on the
> appropriate way to do this.
> 
> Having read these paragraphs I feel that I'm doing something really bad...

Core and Extras use different build systems. The %{?dist} tag advice 
applies to Extras and the tag has no effect in the Core buildsystem, so 
things are hardcoded there instead.

Paul.