Summary of the 2008-04-08 Packaging Committee meeting

[Les Mikesell]

Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> 
>>>> Same here.  No conflicts existed until fedora packagers duplicated 
>>>> packages that already existed in well-known repositories and forked 
>>>> them instead of mirroring.
>>>
>>> A cross distribution package repository is always going to be 
>>> different from a distribution specific repository.
>>
>> I don't see how that is relevant, given that the pre-existing 
>> repositories mostly/all have added version-specific instances for each 
>> fedora release.
> 
> Third party repositories follow their own licensing and packaging 
> policies which are different even they target a specific distribution. 
> This is what you fail to understand.

The only parts where this matters are those where there is incompatible 
duplication within the fedora repository.  What I specifically fail to 
understand is why those packages that have been duplicated could not 
have been done in a way that the same contents would be acceptable in 
both repositories.  Why, for example, couldn't the changes you say 
fedora needs as a dependency for openoffice be included in the jpackage 
repository for that fedora release and maintained as exact copies?

>> Could you share some amusing anecdotes about how the existing 
>> repositories refused to make these changed versions available when you 
>> tried to provide them to maintain complete compatibility?
> 
> Refer to list archives in the specific repositories or past discussions 
> even in this list. Giving you "amusing anecdotes" isn't my job.

Those discussions left me with the impression that no actual effort was 
made to stay compatible with any other repository in spite of knowing 
that you don't and probably won't ever provide equivalent contents.  I 
was hoping to hear otherwise.


-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com