On the broken dependency list

[Benjamin Youngdahl]

I've been following the discussion on the limitations of the auto-generated
"broken dependency" list.  I thought I'd throw in my thoughts.  I'll preface
this up front by saying that 1) using the scripts on the Wiki has helped me,
and 2) I realize open source means "help out" and I frankly don't have the
time at the moment to fix what I see as broken.  With that said ...

I was surprised that the "broken dependencies" list was only one level
deep.  The uninformed might look at that list, try to do an update, and see
lots more broken dependencies than are listed.  For example, "open office"
being broken for quite some time based on a java dependency.  That can make
testing more confusing for the user.  It certainly confused me at first, and
I think of myself as a fairly experienced techie (perhaps not so with
Fedora.)

I would venture the opinion that anything which eases the testing process
for the users who volunteer to test rawhide will only help the project in
the long run.  Of course, the simple fact that the code itself may be broken
makes the whole testing process not for the faint of heart.

Perhaps, though, certain minor tweaks could ease the process for the folks
that do take up the yoke of rawhide.  I think having a comprehensive list of
broken packages (packages with broken dependencies) would be useful.  It
certainly communicates the full extent to which rawhide is foobar, rather
than obscuring it in some core packages upon which many many things depend.
If creating this comprehensive list is difficult, than perhaps a simple
change to the automatic message which describes, clearly, that the list of
"broken deps for x86_64" is not actually that.  It is merely the first level
of dependency recursion.  I think at the very least, the current data is
confusingly labeled.

I would go a bit farther to say that it would be helpful, to the testers, if
the packages were actually signed.  Maybe this has changed, but I've always
expected that rawhide packages will not be signed.  Therefore, I only
download from the redhat ftp site.  Any automated signing process would
greatly assist people like me who won't download and install binaries from a
third party mirror unless they are signed by redhat/fedora.

Just my thoughts; I appreciate the efforts of all involved.

Best regards,
Ben
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