Re: ... binary RPM question ...

[bob proulx com (Bob Proulx)]

Jos Vos wrote:
> If you don't have a Source: tag, where do you get your files from?
> Out of the blue?  From "what's there at that moment"?

In this case of people trying to use rpm for closed sourced projects
then usually the files will be installed by methods outside of rpm.
So from your perspective, yes, they will appear "out of the blue".
Of course this is frowned upon by free software advocates because it
prevents the source from being distributed.  But as far as producing a
workable rpm file this is okay from a technical perspective.

> This is against common RPM rules, even those that apply to packaging
> binary software.

It is against most software rules/guidelines for distributing packages
with a distribution (e.g. Fedora) but not against rpmbuild rules.  The
rpmbuild program allows this fine.  The rpm process is okay with this.
It is a philosophical issue and not a technical one.

> The proper way, IMHO, is using the tar'ed binary tree as source
> file.

Of course doing it this way is fine.  But it is not required.  Among
other things bundling a binary blob in like that allows a .src.rpm
file to be produced that could rebuild the binary .rpm file.  But
because the source is not really source the .src.rpm file is not
really useful.  It could not be used to port the code from 32-bit to
64-bit for example.  Therefore IMNHO in this type of case it does not
really add anything over just having the files appear out of the blue.

Bob