Fedora Alternatives (Re: [fab] build service)

[Michael Schwendt]

On Sun, 12 Nov 2006 22:09:33 +0100, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:

> > Explicit Conflicts are the worse opposite of versioned "Requires",
> 
> As I wrote earlier: Well, we need some conflicts for good reasons now
> and then.

Please enlighten me. How good can a reason be to have such a conflict?

At no point in time there must ever be a reason for an Extras package
to conflict with Core. Extras packages are made for a well-known target.

> > Example:
> >   devel/hunky-fonts/hunky-fonts.spec
> >   Conflicts:      fontconfig < 2.3.93
> > 
> > There's no comment that explains this.
> > Can we please require packagers
> > to explain such unusual things in the spec file?
> 
> Talk to the packaging committee please. That really their business. I'm
> all for it.

Then simply back up the proposal and forward it appropriately as part of
FESCo seeking guidance by the packaging committee. Some people in FESCo
are part of the packaging committee even.

> > [...]
> 
> And example for a *afaik* (and Michael, please correct me if I'm wrong)
> valid conflicts (it was even discusses on fedora-devel quite some time
> ago iirc):
>   libhugetlbfs/libhugetlbfs.spec
>   Conflicts: kernel < 2.6.16
> The package for example works fine in a chroot (vserver anyone?) without
> a kernel installed, but on normal machines the installed kernels needs
> at least to be 2.6.16. And the conflicts makes sure that the users has
> none installed that are older -- that's won't work with a Requires (the
> user could still have old kernel around and might accidentally boot into
> it).

Questionable. Superfluous. Dangerous. Blocks kernel upgrades. Tries to
set up artificial hurdles for users of command-line package installers.

FC-6 does only offer a kernel >= 2.6.18, so in an Extras 6 package this
conflict adds nothing else than trouble. Looking for fun with an Anaconda
based dist upgrade?