Disttags are nice, save the disttags

[Axel Thimm]

On Tue, Jun 05, 2007 at 04:32:51AM -0400, Christopher Aillon wrote:
> Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> >On Mon, 2007-06-04 at 16:56 -0400, Christopher Aillon wrote:
> >>Patrice Dumas wrote:
> >>> On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 04:31:56PM -0400, Christopher Aillon wrote:
> >>>> 
> >>>> My argument is that if packages don't get updated that often, disttag 
> >>is >> rather useless as the chances are low that it will get a fedora 
> >>udpate >> pushed.  And on the off-chance it does, diverging a specfile 
> >>once is not >> a big deal.
> >>>> 
> >>>> I think this is _NOT_ the current state of affairs else we would not 
> >>>> have as many .fc6 packages as we do in F-7.  Those packages should 
> >>have >> the disttag removed IMO.
> >>> 
> >>> Maybe some, but not necessarily all of them. Taking myself as an
> >>> example, I own some python modules that may certainly be better without
> >>> disttag, but I also have C/C++ stuff that, although stable and
> >>> unfrequently updated are certainly better with a disttag.
> >>
> >>Why is it better with a disttag, out of curiosity?
> >In many cases it's: Though spec files are identical the contents of the
> >binary rpms aren't. directories change (e.g. %_*dir), deps change etc.
> 
> You're missing the point.  If a package is only updated e.g. once a 
> year,

So you know beforehand how often a package will be updated in the
future?

> and that one update is only for e.g. glibc ABI changes -- guess 
> what, ABI in a release (Zod, Moonshine, etc) isn't changing

Not true, for Zod -> Moonshine this was a first timer. And had gcc 4.2
landed in the usual timeframe (was expected around December) we
wouldn't even be talking about rebuilds. gcc 4.2 which is now almost a
month old will most probably make it into F8 very soon.

> so there's no need to rebuild that.  Just bump in rawhide and
> rebuild there.  disttag doesn't gain you anything here in the
> branches.

Let's revert the question: "Why is it better without a disttag, out of
curiosity?". There is definitely a gain with a disttag, one can argue
how big it is, but what are the drawbacks? That some packages give
away their age? I see that as a feature, not a bug: "Hey, bridge-utils
is broken on F7. Hm, it has an fc6 marker. OK, it was built on FC6's
kernel-headers from 2.6.18, no wonder it doesn't know anything about
2.6.21"

Bottom points:
o full rebuilds should become a must
o disttags are helpful either way
-- 
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/attachments/20070605/6bc21faa/attachment.sig>