RPM roadmapping

[Dimi Paun]

On Sat, 2007-07-28 at 23:35 +0200, Till Maas wrote:
> 
> rpmbuild could implement itself all the stuff that is the same in Fedora's 
> specs:
> 
> - a sane default buildroot definition
> - Cleaning $RPM_BUILD_ROOT itself in %install (and without any race condition)
> - A default %clean section with rm -rf $RPM_BUILD_ROOT
> - %defattr(-,root,root,-) per default in %files
> 
> This would save at least 5 lines in nearly every spec of Fedora.

It's not a matter of saving space, but this is a conceptual problem
too -- why should the .spec file know and set the $RPM_BUILD_ROOT?
And why should it do the default 'rm -rf $RPM_BUILD_ROOT'???

This _feels_ very, very wrong. It is a clear layering violation 
that is confusing and counterproductive. rpmbuild should create 
the root and pass it into the .spec, taking care of cleaning it 
when appropriate.

My proposal is to implement this where it belongs (in rpmbuild), 
and issue warnings (and ignore) any attempt to set the build root 
or to rm -rf it from within the spec.

-- 
Dimi Paun <dimi at lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.