Re: Cannot use DistURL tag in spec files

[Jeff Johnson <jbj redhat com>]

On Sun, May 05, 2002 at 02:04:07PM +0300, Ville Skyttä wrote:
> I just filed a bug report about not being able to use the DistURL tag in
> spec files [1].  One can set the %disturl in ~/.rpmmacros and get the
> expected result, though.
> 
> I guess this is not the way rpm should behave?


No, this behavior is exactly what I implemented.

The original intent (still pending) was to wire a known and
reliable URL with well defined behavior to the DistURL: tag.

What remains is to get buy-in and consensus from distro vendors
(and implementers like the rpmfind maintainer, who originally asked
for the feature and was supposed to help define a reasonable protocol)
to support the Yet To Be Invented But Well Defined Behavior.

Unless there's well defined (and testably conformant) behavior, there's
little reason to add Yet More Glop to package headers, abuse any of the
existing tags
	Distribution:
	Vendor:
	Packager:
to taste, that's what they're there for, you can put any old crap you
want in them.

Please don't abuse the DistURL: tag, or I'll have to do
	RPMTAG_DISTURL++
(or equivalent) in order to associate a stronger guarantee of well defined
and testably conformant behavior with the tag. All when the time comes,
of course, getting consensus from vendors is well nigh impossible, and
LSB is interested in doing it's owh thing, etc.

<shrug>

73 de Jeff

-- 
Jeff Johnson	ARS N3NPQ
jbj@redhat.com (jbj@jbj.org)
Chapel Hill, NC