[libvirt] RFC: spec file cleanup ideas

[Cole Robinson]

On 04/15/2016 06:03 AM, Andrea Bolognani wrote:
> On Fri, 2016-04-08 at 19:13 -0400, Cole Robinson wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>  
>> I wanted to float some ideas about cleaning up the RPM spec file. None of it
>> is urgent but I'll end up scratching the itch eventually and I want to make
>> sure people are on board
> 
> So I actually just skimmed your proposal... I think the idea of
> dropping from the .spec file stuff that we've already dropped
> from the build system is a sound one, so unless there are
> concerns about specific bits I'd say we should move forward
> with this.
> 
> On the other hand... Why do we ship the .spec file in the first
> place? Is Fedora, or any other distribution for that matter,
> using it as-is? Or is it meant to be just for developers'
> convenience?
> 
> Personally, I'd be happy having to maintain a single build
> system and leaving downstream packaging to distributions. But
> maybe that's just a consequence of my background in Debian
> packaging :)

We do actually share the spec file between RHEL and Fedora with local changes
largely only for changelog and adding patches. I love the way it works for
libvirt because it distributes the burden of maintaining packaging among the
whole team (at least those employed by redhat). Especially when we needed to
build for RHEL5 up to latest Fedora.

It also allows for 'make rpm' which is handy for a whole bunch of reasons,
especially for new contributors on fedora/rhel who want to test a bug fix
without having to figure out the proper configure invocation to get a working
setup.

- Cole