Software Management call for RFEs

David Tardon dtardon at redhat.com
Sat May 25 06:36:25 UTC 2013


Hi,

On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 10:08:06AM -0700, Adam Williamson wrote:
> A 'metapackage' is an actual package shipped in the repositories which
> contains no files, and whose raison d'etre is to express some
> dependencies. There are a few of these in Fedora, xorg-x11-drivers being
> the classic example, but they are generally strongly discouraged. The
> idea is that Fedora uses comps groups to express the concept 'this group
> of packages forms some kind of cohesive set and can be installed
> together', not metapackages.

Some things in favor of metapackages:

1. The packager has to know that such thing as comps exists. (I know
about it. I have even seen patches for it, so I know it is some sort of
XML. But I have no idea where to look for it. Is there a repo for it?
"fedpkg clone -B comps" was unsuccessful.) On the other side, the
packager already knows how to make a (sub-)package that depends on other
package(s).

2. A metapackage uses rpm syntax for specifying the dependencies. No
need to learn anything new.

3. A metapackage is under the packager's control. A comps group is not.
(I doubt packagers have commit access to to comps repo (if there is a
repo). That means creating a patch, opening a bug, waiting for reaction
(probably for days),... tadda yadda... Or I can create a subpackage and
be done in a minute.)

D.


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