source url when upstream disappears (geocities)

[Development discussions related to Fedora]

I vaguely remember something about this, but can't find it in wiki or
list archives:
My upstream hasn't updated in years, but the package (glglobe) still
builds for fedora and epel. Late in 2009, it appears that the upstream
hosting site was closed: http://www.geocities.com  (now yahoo).

However, www.oocities.com has chosen to create an archive of various
parts of geocities, and hence the original web pages and source are
available within the archive; it then has a different URL.

Since rpmlint complains, W invalid-URL, for the URL and Source0, it it
acceptable to point to the archive site ?

Concern would be:
- the archive places the content in a frame, so it's not exactly the
same look
- content could get changed by someone else
- linked source could get changed by someone else.

Should I update the URL ?
I was thinking to comment the original URL & Source indicating the
original site, but then change the tagged lines to the oocities versions.

[Kevin Fenzi]

On Sat, 17 Jul 2010 12:09:01 +1000
David Timms <dtimms(a)iinet.net.au&gt; wrote:

...snip...

>  Should I update the URL ?
>  I was thinking to comment the original URL & Source indicating the
>  original site, but then change the tagged lines to the oocities
>  versions. 
I would think it would be fine to add a note to the spec with the orig
link and change them to the new oocities one. Makes sure the Source
link downloads the same thing that you are using (same md5sum). 

You should be able to see if the source changes by md5sum I would think?
Just like any other site that might be tampered with... 

kevin

[Michael Schwendt]

On Sun, 18 Jul 2010 10:41:42 -0600, Kevin wrote:

>  On Sat, 17 Jul 2010 12:09:01 +1000
>  David Timms wrote:
>  
>  ...snip...
>  
>  > Should I update the URL ? 
No. Drop it if it gives 404 Not Found.

>  > I was thinking to comment the original URL & Source
> indicating the
>  > original site, but then change the tagged lines to the oocities
>  > versions.
>  
>  I would think it would be fine to add a note to the spec with the orig
>  link and change them to the new oocities one. Makes sure the Source
>  link downloads the same thing that you are using (same md5sum). 
>  
>  You should be able to see if the source changes by md5sum I would think?
>  Just like any other site that might be tampered with...  
The md5sum is not specified in the spec file.
However, the tarball is included with the spec file in the src.rpm
already. The oocities site is no replacement for the project's web page.
It's just some independent sort of archive. You don't want anyone,
who finds your spec file (or a copy of it) somewhere on the Internet,
to download from the place that is not the software project's home page.

[James Findley]

On 07/18/2010 06:32 PM, Michael Schwendt wrote:
>  On Sun, 18 Jul 2010 10:41:42 -0600, Kevin wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 17 Jul 2010 12:09:01 +1000
> > David Timms wrote:
> >
> > ...snip...
> >
> >> Should I update the URL ?
>
>  No. Drop it if it gives 404 Not Found.
>  

rpmlint will occasionally complain that a url is invalid even when it 
isn't.  google code projects, for example, often have this issue.  If 
the url actually is valid but rpmlint doesn't like it, I tend to ignore 
rpmlint.

[Ville Skyttä]

On Monday 19 July 2010, James Findley wrote:
>  On 07/18/2010 06:32 PM, Michael Schwendt wrote:
>  > 
>  > No. Drop it if it gives 404 Not Found.
>  
>  rpmlint will occasionally complain that a url is invalid even when it
>  isn't.  google code projects, for example, often have this issue.  If
>  the url actually is valid but rpmlint doesn't like it, I tend to ignore
>  rpmlint. 
Just for the record, I don't think this has anything to do about rpmlint 
liking some URLs or not; if it reports 404, that's what it got at the moment 
it was run.  Google code is known for these kinds of (apparently transient) 
problems, for example the source check results regularly posted on this list 
show the same issue.