OpenSuSE Buildsystem

[Dennis Gilmore]

On Tuesday 16 December 2008 10:48:48 am Mike McGrath wrote:
> I've been talking with some of the SuSE guys and we agree there's some
> overlap or at least coordination between their buildsystem and ours.  The
> first obvious low hanging fruit is common macros.  For those who wonder
> "why would we help OpenSuSE?"  the answer is common goals, and better user
> experiences.
>
> The problem is time and coordination.  So on a whim I thought I'd send
> this email out.  Do we have any contributors out there who are both
> members of Fedora and SuSE who would be willing to lead this charge, find
> similarities and places for coordination?

I think that common macros needs to be solved at rpm.org level.  not a 
buildsystem level.  koji has no say in any of the macros it uses what is 
defined inside the distro. the macros fedora uses are defined in rpm and redhat-
rpm-config, the disttag macro is defined in fedora-release.

I see great benefit to everyone by having that problem solved at the rpm.org 
level.  it will make it much easier to pickup packages and fixes cross distro.  
that is not a bad thing. especially for ISV's and upstreams supporting all 
distros  they only need to do the work once and build everywhere.

Working directly with them to fix issues for there buildsystem however I feel 
causes some conflicts.  namely it legitimises the use of there buildsystem for 
building fedora/RHEL packages.  I  know people use it and will continue to do 
so.  but I would ask why?  is there some service that fedora could provide and 
is not?  is it because you can be lazy and sloppy in the packaging and it lets 
you?  is it just being able to do it in a single place?  

We do need to get out of the business of running two buildsystems. we really 
do need to be able to build EPEL in koji.  I have scheduled a koji hackfest 
for fudcon.  so if your there and interested then come help.  there is always 
#koji on freenode for discussion on koji,  so if you cant make it in person 
you can be there virtually :)

Dennis