On Sun, 19 Dec 2004, Michael Schwendt wrote:
On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 14:59:45 +0100 (CET), Dag Wieers wrote:
> > > No no, most of the users do want a disttag and repotag. This mailinglist
> > > does not reflect that because very few people here are actual users.
> >
> > What an irony. I bet those users are mislead by the repotag inflation and
> > don't consider looking for alternatives. Tell users how to query vendor,
> > distribution and signature fields, after those are used properly by
> > all parties involved.
>
> No no, read the list of advantages. None of the proposed work-arounds
> offer the same set of advantages.
>
>
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2004-December/msg00498.html
That list is adjusted to your specific point of view and your personal
wishes and goals. Items in that list disregard any of the discussed
pitfalls.
On the contrary, the people you discuss with acknowledge the benefits
of disttags, but concentrate on avoiding pitfalls or improper use.
The only pitfall is not related with repotags themselves, but the specific
way we want to influence the upgrade path. And even in that case it has
been a decision based on the advantages outweighing one specific problem.
So they don't belong in that list, as the list is not specific to our
implementation. Otherwise I would have added the advantages of our scheme
to it too, which I didn't because then it would be unfair.
> > > Yes, my first paragraph was wrong, for some reason I
thought fedora.us
> > > finally decided to have disttags.
> >
> > Funnily, they have had disttags since day one, because it is implemented
> > in the buildsystem: rh80 -> rh90 -> 1 -> 2 -> 3 in right-most part
of
> > release. I'm not going into a loop with regard to discussing them.
>
> Ok. But 1 and 2 is very Fedora centric and has no purpose in the larger
> scale of things that exist. How would one know whether 3 means FC3 or EL3?
The question is wrong. It should be:
How do I find out whether a package is for FC3 or EL3?
The "Distribution" field would contain "Fedora Core 3" for all FC3
packages and "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3" for all RHEL3 packages.
You use that field already, too.
But then you ignore the fact that lots of people want the disttag to give
them a recognisable identifier in the filename and package info (EVR).
1 does not give people that, because frankly, I wasn't aware of it.
You put "Dag Apt Repository for Fedora Core 3" in there,
and I hope
you didn't forget about that.
I don't, the repotag is in addition to the Distribution field.
A '3' in the filename is ambiguous. An 'fc3'
substring in a filename
is ambiguous, too. Adding ambiguous and non trustworthy vendor
information in the filename doesn't make it better. '.rf' is as poorly
chosen as '.fdr' or '.fr'. You expect that users know that .fr does
not mean "french" and that .rf doesn't mean "redhat fedora".
Let's not fool each other. 'fc3' is much more specific and useful than
'3' in itself.
I wasn't aware there was a disttag in fedora.us. That should have been
your first clue !
And the absence of 'rf' will never allow people to identify packages based
on the filename, while having the 'rf' repotag inside is useful for those
that understand the concept, but won't harm those that don't.
I really can't understand that you are ignoring those facts. To me it's
common sense. Maybe I understand better how users work as I help a few
computer-illiterate users to work with Fedora and understand them the
concepts. Without a recognisable disttag and repotag it's very hard to let
people understand.
Similarly, there are much better ways how to query a package for who
made it. Vendor and Packager information and signature are
available. Let's put them to good effect, please.
Sure, let's use those too.
But there is a real use to having it in the filename and EVR info,
despite the fact that we're using the release tag for something it wasn't
designed for.
-- dag wieers, dag(a)wieers.com,
http://dag.wieers.com/ --
[all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power]