Vanilla builds guideline?

[Ondřej Vašík]

Hi,
for better automation of our static analysis tools we would like to have
some defined way how to get "as close to vanilla as possible" build from
Fedora srpms. Based on our statistics ~15% of packages are affected -
you can't simply build them without Fedora patches.

This can also be used for other purposes - if you want to rule out
influence of distro specific patches before reporting problem upstream
in the case that upstream sources are hard to compile/get running on
Fedora system. This could reduce false alarms to upstream lists.

In many cases it is not possible to simply disable all the patches -
some are required to get the rpm built but do not affect program
functionality. We have discussed that problem with rpm guy - to get a
way with the lowest possible impact on the package. As a solution, we
are proposing %{?_rawbuild} conditional.
Note: Some packages already use this %{?_rawbuild} anotation, some use %
global _with_vanilla 0 to give user a chance for vanilla build.

Change in the spec file is very simple - just for the patches required
for vanilla build this conditional should be added.

e.g. from the sudo spec file
%patch3 -p1 -b .m4path
->
%patch3 -p1 -b .m4path %{?_rawbuild} 

After this change you can simply create a wrapper for rpmbuild, which
will apply only patches with the %{?_rawbuild} annotation. For more
complicated changes, _with_vanilla global is probably better option.

Our wrapper is available at
http://kdudka.fedorapeople.org/rpmbuild-rawbuild .

Is it possible to establish some common rule for Vanilla builds in
Packaging Guidelines? Any other ideas?

Thanks in advance for consideration! 
(or pointing me to better place where to ask - I already tried
packaging(a)lists.fedoraproject.org , but with almost no response (only
suggestion of fedora-devel list :) ))

Greetings,
         Ondrej Vasik

[Kevin Kofler]

Ondrej Vasik wrote:
>  Is it possible to establish some common rule for Vanilla builds in
>  Packaging Guidelines? 
IMHO, that would be unhelpful, unneccessary and unsupportable.

You already mention that there are patches which need to be applied for the 
package to build/work at all. It's not always obvious which these are. Plus, 
where do you draw the line between working and not working? Moreover, in 
some cases, building against the Fedora libfoo will require a patch, whereas 
building against the vanilla libfoo won't (and the patch might even make it 
not build).

I think it's hard enough to make things work as is. People who want vanilla 
upstream software should build it directly from upstream or use Slackware. 
I'll take software that actually works, thank you very much! Every minute 
spent on making vanilla builds work is a minute NOT spent on making our 
default builds work better.

        Kevin Kofler

[Kamil Dudka]

Hi Kevin,

On Tuesday 01 November 2011 18:23:25 Kevin Kofler wrote:
>  IMHO, that would be unhelpful, unneccessary and unsupportable.
thank you for expressing your concerns.

>  You already mention that there are patches which need to be applied
> for the
>  package to build/work at all. 
For the vast majority of Fedora packages, we are already able to do vanilla 
builds using the aforementioned utility without changing _anything_ in the 
packages themselves.  The other packages (5-10%) require usually a one-line 
change in the specfile to get this working.

>  It's not always obvious which these are.  
Please be specific.  Are there any patches that you are not sure whether
they are required for build?  Then give us some examples.

>  Plus, where do you draw the line between working and not working?
> Moreover,
>  in some cases, building against the Fedora libfoo will require a patch,
>  whereas building against the vanilla libfoo won't (and the patch might even
>  make it not build). 
Such a patch needs to be improved anyway in order to be accepted by upstream, 
which is our long-term goal, isn't it?

>  I think it's hard enough to make things work as is. People who
> want vanilla
>  upstream software should build it directly from upstream or use Slackware.
>  I'll take software that actually works, thank you very much! Every minute
>  spent on making vanilla builds work is a minute NOT spent on making our
>  default builds work better. 
We are not forcing anybody to work on fixing issues related to vanilla builds. 
This request is about defining a standardized way for supporting vanilla 
builds.  It will always be maintainer's decision whether to support them or 
not.  Actually many core packages (such as kernel or openjdk) explicitly 
support vanilla builds for long period already.

Kamil

[Rahul Sundaram]

On 11/01/2011 10:22 PM, Ondrej Vasik wrote:
>  Hi,
>  for better automation of our static analysis tools we would like to have
>  some defined way how to get "as close to vanilla as possible" build from
>  Fedora srpms 
If you want this change, you should file a request with FESCo

https://fedorahosted.org/fesco/

Rahul