missing dependency python(abi) = 2.5 for package: ...

[Michael Schwendt]

On Sat, 03 Jan 2009 12:18:03 -0500, glenn wrote:

> Agreed, F11 development is not ready for anything yet.
> 
> I have been trying to run F11 development updates, but with little 
> success.  I vary from 300 to abt 350 pkgs that are waiting for 
> dependencies.  The python abi=2.5 is a prime example.

Cannot be true. Compare with the daily "Rawhide Report" which is posted to
this list and fedora-devel-list. At the bottom it shows the full list of
broken dependencies in Rawhide.

What makes the problem worse, however, is that packages in up-to-date F10
are seen as "newer than" packages in Rawhide. This happens if updates are
released only for F10, i.e. the corresponding update in Rawhide is missing
(or fails to build), and the version-release of the F10 updates is higher
than the most recent build of the pkg in Rawhide. If this results in
additional broken dependencies [which are not covered in the Rawhide
report], such as with Python 2.5 to 2.6, it becomes more difficult to
upgrade from F10 to Rawhide.

Upgrade issues are a separate issue, though. It needs a policy before
somebody could continue with running the upgrade path checker script.

> I think development in Fedora has changed in personality.  IMO it used 
> to be you reported problems (ex: with dependencies) and in a few days, 
> updates would come along to address the issue. 

With the daily Rawhide Report, the package maintainers receive private
email for broken dependencies. Daily and till they fix the packages.

> Now everything is driven 
> by some God awful complex script (so many things are being supportted). 

Could you expand on this? What "awful complex script" do you refer to?

> That has changed the output to often a 100 or more pkgs in a day.  The 
> pkgs are all over the map so I doubt it is possible to support with 
> manual methods.

It is 100 or more updates in Rawhide a day, because the total number of
packages in Rawhide has increased a lot. And many packagers update their
packages regularly. Every successful build for Rawhide done in koji is
published automatically a day later. You don't need to visit koji web
to download anything there.

> The problem, I think is, they are focused on script issues. Things like 
> the python abi=2.5 has been a known problem for over a month now.

Still there may be issues that are either being worked on or which need
additional work before a package would build and work for Python 2.6.

> I also think things are not managed very well.  The active development 
> is using koji as a site.  Those verbally complaining abt something not 
> working as expected, have often been pointed to koji and advise that the 
> problem had been fixed there, but hasn't made it to distro.

Are you sure?

It doesn't apply to Rawhide, but only to releases of Fedora. In these
cases, something has been fixed in Rawhide (and *will* be available in
Rawhide a day later), but updates for Fedora N need to be prepared
separately and be pushed through the Fedora Updates System. Probably you
mean, that builds in koji (= the Fedora Build System) may be downloaded
already _before_ they will be published in Rawhide or as updates for
Fedora N.