Log from yesterdays (20070523) EPEL SIG meeting

[Dag Wieers]

On Thu, 24 May 2007, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:

> 00:25 <    mmcgrath> | Jeff_S: what if getting more people means talking
> about one issue for months on end when 'more people' means 3 or 4 people?

We're talking about incompatibility with future CentOS Extras, with users 
using RPMforge and ATrpms. (again see the clamav example)


> 00:26 <    mmcgrath> | rdieter: I'd argue that even if this consession
> was made they wouldn't participate.

We do not ask to evaluate repotags in order for us to join. repotags have 
advantages to users and make repositories work together. Without them 
dependency problems are problematic with current tools. repotags just 
shows if EPEL/Fedora cares about the existing RHEL/CentOS users/community.

If EPEL/Fedora does not care about us, why should we care about EPEL ?


> 00:28 <         f13> | for EPEL to be successful as a place to get
> packages and promoted by Red Hat like Fedora Extras was, the software
> must be available in EPEL.

Sure, and EPEL's packaging policy provides everything any user wants. 
Backports and most recent versions and experimental stuff.

EPEL rules them all (even though EPEL is the new kid on the block).
Existing users, you have been stupid to choose something when EPEL was not 
available, because now you'll have to fix up.


> 00:28 <    mmcgrath> | and not one person here is actually in favor of
> repo tags.  There's just people in favor of working with other people
> who aren't part of our community who are in favor of repo tags.

Ok, then I'd prefer you don't adopt it and we simply say CentOS 
Extras/ATrpms/RPMforge is NOT compatible with EPEL. Please don't use EPEL.


> 00:29 <       nirik> | after reading that rpmforge and atrpms have
> already dropped the repotag, I think we shouldn't bother to try and add
> it...

We did not. You could have verified this.


> 00:30 <         f13> | and since RHEL itself doesn't have a repo tag,
> this is all irrelevant.

Bogus, enterprise users (and Red Hat support) would like to see when 
packages are not supported. A repotag is a means to an end. Sure there are 
other options, but none which work with current tools.


> 00:31 <         f13> | rdieter: explain to me how we can take advantage
> of packages only being available in a non Fedora repo that we can't
> mention due to legal reasons?
> 00:31 <         f13> | rdieter: how is that any good to us?

Are we being egoistic here ? EPEL rules them all. Why should EPEL care ?
Since when do users no longer count.


> 00:32 <         f13> | while at the same time including illegal stuff
> thus tainting the entire repo
> 00:32 <         f13> | which is why we can't ship a repo file for them
> in Fedora, why we can't mention them in our wiki, etc.. etc..

And why Red Hat will not ship with EPEL.
But CentOS will ship with CentOS Extras (and not EPEL).


> 00:34 <         f13> | I'm just failing to see the value in "working
> with" a set of repos that we can't mention, we can't guide users to, we
> can't preconfigure user's systems for, we can't expect users to
> magically discover that there is another repo they have to manually add
> to get access to potentially useful software, that we could just put in
> repos that we _can_ guide users to.

How about users that already have RPMforge, ATrpms configured ?
I guess they are excluded to use EPEL, right ?


This is silly. First of all nobody mentions that without repotags the 
current infrastructure DOES NOT allow packages from different repositories 
to work reliably together.

Not using repotags is dismissing the existence or collaboration with other 
packages.

Secondly, someone brings up that both atrpms and rpmforge do not longer 
use a repotag, which is NOT true. We had the intention to drop it after 
Fedora/EPEL Refused to consider it. And now they use our intention (which 
is not yet policy) as a reason to refuse it.

Sigh. Can someone hand me the cluestick ?

It's nice that the meetings are done in an open fashion, it shows that the 
EPEL mentality is the same as the Fedora Extras mentality.

Kind regards,
--   dag wieers,  dag at wieers.com,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power]