spec files (was Re: Zope RPMs)

[Michael A. Peters]

On Wed, 2004-04-28 at 03:31, Chris McDonough wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-04-28 at 05:48, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> > fedora.us have some heavier procedures to ensure package quality. Some
> > top packagers including Matthias decided not to bother with them and
> > maintain their own repo (very simplistic summary). You can however take
> > their SPECS, submit them to fedora and go through the QA process for
> > them (and in turn they're welcome to take back the changes QA proposed
> > and get them in their own specs)
> 
> Thanks for the explanation!  I understand now.  I will try to run the
> gauntlet with my SRPM then without contacting Matthias.
> 
> - C

One thing I suggest -
Try to get a spec file that builds with vanilla rpm (IE no distro
specific macros) into the upstream source tree, if there isn't one
already. If there is one upstream already, try to be as close to it as
you can (and suggest patch to their spec file if they do something that
is just plain wrong - which is fairly common)

Best way to do it is to create a spec.in file - so that package version
and even sometimes dependency versions can be generated automatically
reducing maintenance of the spec file (IE use @VERSION@ for the version
instead of a static version number)

In addition to the spec.in being created, you also will need to tell
configure to create the spec file (so it gets created with make dist)
and you need to tell the Makefile that the spec file gets put into the
tarball for a make dist.

The spec file for the vanilla source should not have any patches
obviously (it should build with just wget tarball && rpmbuild -tb
tarball). But if there is a properly written spec file in the vanilla
source, it then becomes easier for different distro's to take that spec
file and tailor it to their own needs (customize configure switches, add
custom patches etc.) while still having their rpm's similar enough in
package layout that there is less confusion in userland with respect to
which subpackage has what in it.

> 
-- 
Cheap Linux CD's - http://mpeters.us/linux/