Packaging Committee Meeting Summary (2010-02-03)

[Paul Howarth]

On 05/02/10 15:56, Till Maas wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 05, 2010 at 10:13:52AM -0500, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>> On Fri, Feb 05, 2010 at 08:59:52AM +0000, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
>>> On Wed, Feb 03, 2010 at 02:29:18PM -0500, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>>>> SRPM Buildtime macros  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SRPM_Buildtime_macros
>>>
>>> Did we consider fixing the bug in RPM/the packaging system instead of
>>> pushing more work on packagers?
>>>
>> This is not a response to a bug in rpm.  This addresses people trying to put
>> macros into %descriptions when those macros aren't defined at the time of
>> build.
>
> Imho this is only what the guidelines say and it sounds to apply to use
> cases like:
> %description
> This is a PyYAML for Python: %{python_version}
>
> So the macro is part of what is going into the package's description.
> Especially the case that it does not only mention %desription, but also
> Summary make this very likely to be understood like this. E.g. why would
> someone put a macro into the Summary tag, if not to make it appear in
> the Summary tag?
>
>> Nicolas's argument is that rpm does not automatically detect when he wants
>> to end his %description and therefore he should be excluded from the
>> requirement.
>
> The argument is, that the macro is not used to create the %description
> afaics. Imho this is a valid way, because using his macros before
> %description seems not to work (I believe I tried). So for this case,
> there is really a bug or annoyance in rpm: It's not possible to use
> external macros at a good visible place within the SPEC that does not
> end up in the %description if it is not expanded.
> I also agree that fixing rpm should be at least the long goal and
> that the issue should also be tracked, before there is an official
> Guideline to work around this deficiency.

Wouldn't this problem be avoided if the SRPM was built in a buildroot 
containing all of the buildreqs (like the binary RPMs are)?

It would be an extra step in the build process, but not a big extra step.

1. Build SRPM in minimal buildroot to determine buildreqs (as currently)
2. Populate buildroot with buildreqs (as currently)
3. Rebuild SRPM in this buildroot (this is the extra step)
4. Build binary RPMs in this buildroot (as currently)

Paul.