----- Original Message -----
From: "Matthew Miller" <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
To: "Fedora Development List" <devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 5, 2012 6:17:56 PM
Subject: What would it take to make Software Collections work in Fedora?
There is a perpetual problem facing all Linux distributions around
how fast
to move with software updates. In Fedora, of course, our default
speed is
petal-to-the-metal. This is part of who we are and why we are
awesome.
However, it also sometimes makes life difficult for us -- for
example, our
Puppet packages are broken because Ruby is too new. It also makes
life
difficult for people trying to use Fedora seriously. It's especially
hard
with Ruby and Java -- not that there's anything _wrong_ with these
languages, but the packaging expectations are different and often in
conflict with the system operator's traditional packaging worldview.
As a Java guy I'm more and more sure that the problem is not in the packaging view but
in the wrong view of developers not being capable of making an application if they
don't bundle everything. You're write the problem is not in the languages it's
in the developers :(.
Alexander Kurtakov
Red Hat Eclipse team
So, some Red Hat folks have developed an idea called Software
Collections
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora_Contributor_Documentation/1/ht...
which is aimed at this problem -- it lets you install and choose
between
different versions of RPM-packaged software in parallel at run-time.
The base tool for enabling this (scl-utils) is included in Fedora,
but we
don't allow Software Collections actually as Fedora packages (see
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SoftwareCollections). This is for very
good
reasons -- there are a number of huge unanswered questions around
structure,
infrastructure, maintenance, and security updates.
I think, though, that this tool, integrated well and supported, could
really
help us in Fedora (and in EPEL). So, I'd like to
a) enumerate the problems with Software Collections in Fedora,
b) develop a medium-term plan for solving those problems, and
c) develop a longer-term plan for taking full advantage of the
functionality
where appropriate.
--
Matthew Miller ☁☁☁ Fedora Cloud Architect ☁☁☁
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
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