add a special Provides: to all login manager packages

[Colin Walters]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 9:30 PM, Toshio Kuratomi <a.badger at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On the contrary, I believe that we'd be cutting off the lifeblood of
> Fedora to make it focus on a few distinct products.

Hm, that's stronger phrasing than what I was intending.  When I say
that the images and releases are products and should be a point of
focus, that doesn't mean to exclusion of everything else.  Obviously
for example we still need developer tools, which don't come with the
desktop or server products.

> Fedora derives its
> contributor base from the fact that there are many people who are each
> willing and enthusiastic about working on different things.  As much as
> possible, we should be attempting to get these people to interact and
> work on their projects inside of Fedora even when the goals conflict
> with each other.

I like this paragraph a lot (and the (snipped) next one which is an
elaboration), and I agree largely.  My point is really that I do not
think "all software now in RPM format" is a goal.  It's a *means* to
various goals, such as providing developer tools, games, and yes,
multiple desktop environments.

But as you go farther down the stack, things get less pluggable,
conflicts increase, impact on the surrounding ecosystem increases.
And I think it's absolutely reasonable to expect (and receive)
pushback.

> Getting too focused on Fedora, the distribution, means that we might
> have a superior Desktop experience or a superior Server OS but it
> doesn't mean that we'll have a rich base of contributors who are willing
> to build new and imperfect software to replace the old and imperfect
> software that we currently run.

Building new imperfect software to replace old imperfect software
doesn't sound very compelling to me...

>   It doesn't mean that we'll continue to
> be innovative or willing to be on the cutting edge.  It doesn't mean
> that we'll be able to attract a large and diverse group of active
> contributors.

I agree we want to be accommodating.  Up to a point.  We have to draw
a line somewhere between "Let's support Fedora/HURD"[1] and "Here's a
patch to make the kernel panic if gnome-session isn't in the process
list".  Where that line is is a matter of debate, and it's useful to
have, which in fact we are.

I forgot to point out in an earlier message that there is precedent
for setting up barriers for low-level software, namely the Fedora 3rd
party kernel driver policy:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/KernelDriverPolicy

All I'm saying is that there should exist similar barriers for
components between the kernel and the desktop.

[1] And if you liked my reaction to new login managers...