Request for Comments: updating RPMs using binary deltas

[Jef Spaleta]

Lenz Grimmer wrote:
> SuSE has been doing this for quite some time now and is working 
> very well.
> Installing patch RPMs does not need to be done via SuSE's YaST - it's all 
> inside of RPM itself. I sent you the patches for RPM in a private message 
> - - they are part of SuSE's "rpm" source RPM and are freely available. I 
> have not checked the RPM devel mailing lists, but I would assume that SuSE 
> has sent these patches upstream as well.

I'd rather not make assumptions about where and when communication
on this issues has actually happened. If you can actually reference a
redhat bugzilla entry where the Suse patch was submitted...or you can
reference a mailinglist url, that would be useful for me. I could be
blind but my quick scan of bugreports against rpm in the bugzilla at
redhat doesn't find the submitted patch bugreport. And knowing with some
accuracy as to when Suse introduced the patch, would help me attempt to
find relevant discussion in the rpm specific forums limited specifically
to Suse's patch.

I've been reading up both on the google groups archive AND the rpm
mailinglist. And I'd have to say that I'm not happy to see the people
pushing this issue now in the general fedora-devel list seem to have
also been the the rpm specific forums for awhile. So far, i've found
general discussion about rpm supporting the concept of patches dating
back to 1998(google groups is fun) or so involving xdelta (Back
when...end user bandwidth mattered). I'm not seeing much in the way of
"new" discussion in this list. At best discussion in this list is an
attempt to to gain public layperson support around the idea...an old
idea. I see no technical relevant reason in continuing to discussing
this..in yet another mailinglist..if discussion in rpm specific forums
dating back to 1998 have not yielded an upstream solution.

-jef