On disttags (was: Choosing rpm-release for fc1 and fdr add-on rpms)

[Alexandre Oliva]

On May 12, 2004, Axel Thimm <Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net> wrote:

> So the general stance is to have a suffux to the release tag
> containing an rpm-sortable disttag and an optional repotag, like

> foo-1.2.3-4.rh9.ralf.src.rpm

> So the release tag looks like

>    <buildid><distid><distversion><repotag_opt>

> where buildid shound end with digits (for example a simple integer
> like "3", or something conatining cvs info like "0.cvs20040512.16"),
> distid should be invariant for the family of distributions and
> distversion should be rpm-sortable (7.3, 8.0, 9 for instance). Repotag
> is placed at the least significant place wrt to rpm comparison and is
> optional.

> Nobody objected this scheme above

I thought there was some minor opposition.  <buildid> should *always*
start with `0.', such that, whenever the distro contains the same
version of the package, starting with 1 or above, the version in the
distro is used.  If you build multiple times, use 0.1, 0.2, etc.

My actual preference would be to instead use:

     0.<distid><distversion><repotag_opt><buildid>

>> >Conversely, all seem to be designed "to take over the system".

> Even though this is our secret obsession, what do you man by that? 

Dunno what he meant, but IMHO external repositories should be split
into Extras and Alternatives, where Extras contain packages that add
to the system without replacing any of its core components, leaving
replacing/upgrading to Alternatives.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva             http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist  oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}