Software Management call for RFEs

[Adam Williamson]

On Sat, 2013-05-25 at 08:36 +0200, David Tardon wrote:
> 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

First google result for 'fedora comps' is:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_use_and_edit_comps.xml_for_package_groups

It has a 'how to edit comps' section which gives the repo URL.

> 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).

Guess again. All packagers can commit to comps, I believe. But please,
please, try to avoid committing to it during release freezes without
checking in with notting/qa/releng, especially if your change adds
packages to release media. Or is completely broken, as has happened. ;)

>  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.)

Or you could not make assumptions :)
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | identi.ca: adamwfedora
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