On Thu, 19 Apr 2007, Tim Jackson wrote:
Dag Wieers wrote:
> Still, nobody listens to the voice me or Axel represents. And I'm sure
> opponents like to minimize what it represents or the value it has.
I don't think that's quite true. Many people, including myself, have expressed
publically before how much they appreciate both the work (in terms of existing
packages & support) and the input (in terms of knowledge) from yourself, Axel
and others. The kmod debate may not have been much fun, and it didn't end up
with the result you wanted, but even in that debate you will find many people
appreciative of your experience with a large userbase.
There is nothing better than yourself & Axel (and all the others with similar
experience) contributing to EPEL. I really would like for that to happen,
because the end result is better when a whole group of people work together in
collaboration and co-operation.
I also think you are over-personalising this by talking about "opponents" and
suchlike. I can (respectfully) disagree with someone, but it doesn't mean they
are an "opponent". Actually, many times we might be trying to achieve the same
thing, we just have different opinions. Sometimes there is no right or wrong,
just a matter of perspective.
With opponent there, I meant someone oposing the repotag idea. I am not a
native English speaker.
> Fact is that RPMforge and AtRPMS will now drop the repotag now
that Fedora
> rejected the idea. Have fun sorting through a mess where there are different
> eg. clamav packages with the same version-release and different content.
> That's what you get when you do not differentiate packages.
Personally I don't have a problem with this in the slightest, which is part of
the reason why I am so ambivalent about repotags. I'm 100% sure that "EPEL
doesn't have repotag" DOES NOT mean "Stuff you Axel/Dag". (Actually, I
had no
participation in the original debate, and I did not vote, so I'm commenting as
an observer. But personally I think it is entirely up to you whether you use a
repotag or not in your own private repo, I respect that decision either way,
and I am quite happy both ways).
But you do not understand what the implications are. The people that voted
did, or should have. And the signal this gives (knowing the implications
and still not adding a repotag) is what makes this very negative towards a
community that existed. EPEL is the newcomer here.
Both RPMforge and EPEL provide clamav packages. (RPMforge was providing
them long before Fedora introduced them, but that's just history). Sadly
Fedora introduced them completely different. Some subpackages are
different in aim and content.
Without a repotag you get:
EPEL:
clamav-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
clamav-data-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
clamav-devel-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
clamav-lib-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
clamav-milter-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
clamav-milter-sysv-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
clamav-server-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
clamav-server-sysv-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
clamav-update-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
RPMforge:
clamav-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
clamav-db-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
clamav-devel-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
clamav-milter-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
clamd-0.88.6-1.el5.i386.rpm
How would Yum (or a user manually) make sense of this ? Packages may
resolve to the wrong thing, but you don't know what is what because there
is no unique identifier to match it with.
I can hear 2 things now: 'than don't drop the rf repotag' and 'another
argument for not mixing repositories'.
And both comments would reveal the sorry state of the mind, because you
simply do not consider the diversity and the fact that EPEL is just
another repository.
You & Axel appear to be implying that you removing repotags is
some kind of
threat, which is going to teach a lesson to some of the people who opposed it
in EPEL. Maybe it will, but personally I don't see it as a big deal either
way. Again, I'm not actually trying to discuss the repotag issue here - just
to point out that co-existence is mutual: nobody in EPEL can criticise you for
removing repotags, but I've not heard from anyone that *wants* to criticise
you. Perhaps I missed them, but I didn't notice anybody saying "hey, we
don't
need repotags, because we're special - but Dag does.". So, please, remove your
repotag. If anyone in EPEL who opposed repotags in EPEL criticises you, then
you can rightly claim they are hypocritical. But I suspect that nobody will
actually complain. Well, time will tell.
Well, again, as a newcomer EPEL gives a bad signal. And the above example is
one that is real.
Not addopting a repotag is saying to other repositories, we don't care
about diversity. We are the one big repository that will rule everything
and either you join or we'll crush you.
Not adopting a repotag is saying to users, hey, if you have problems, it
is all your own fault. We told you not to mix repositories. You should
stick to ours.
And you know what, in contrast to Fedora, with EPEL there is a clear need
for the diversity. Should I stay with a specific version, or do I require
the new functionality ? You can't have both in a single repository. Yum
can't handle it.
> Fedora/EPEL is actively making sure people cannot use packages
from
> different sources
I don't think this is true. However, I do personally keep my active use of
repos to a minimum because I personally find that mixing of sources is
incompatible with the reasons I'm using an enterprise distro - regardless of
the respective quality of the various repos. However, I don't see anything
proposed that actually *stops* people doing that if they really want.
That's fine. But EPEL will not be a solution to everything. And then we're
not talking about people that use Yum and enable a complete repository.
Then we may be talking about a user that NEEDS postfix 2.3 on RHEL5. Or a
user that needs the latest lftp which EPEL does not provide.
Not having repotags makes it harder for users. But this is not about
users, this is about politics and power plays. As a newcomer there is an
interest of making the situation harder so that people move to EPEL.
Kind regards,
-- dag wieers, dag(a)wieers.com,
http://dag.wieers.com/ --
[all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power]