Some thoughts on the yum tutorial

[Paul W. Frields]

On Wed, 2005-07-27 at 13:42 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-07-27 at 08:21 -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> > On Wed, 2005-07-27 at 11:58 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> > > 
> > > I always replace the repositories given in the default entries
> > > by local repositories (I mean in Ireland, in my case).
> > > I don't know if that is standard practice.
> > 
> > It's not, since the default entries are to mirror lists and not single
> > sites.  Your package requests go to a random mirror entry, meaning
> > there's a basic and large-scale load balancing that happens without you
> > having to do anything.  What happens otherwise if your local repo is
> > down?
> 
> I wonder if the idea of having repositories package their .repo and
> other files in an RPM is going to take hold?  As long as the Core and
> Extras repositories do that, we can use them as an example in such a way
> that users understand they can do the same with a repo package from
> their favorite outside repository.
> 
> Keeping our focus on *only* what ships in Core and Extras makes our jobs
> both easier and hard.  The old rule that, "When the only tool you have
> is a hammer, suddenly every problem looks like a nail," that can happen
> to us.  However, it is awfully nice to have a scope.

Strangely, the other day I was thinking about another cautionary axiom
for the FOSS world, which is "Even if you just discovered a toolbox full
of fizzgigs, hoojybodgies and whatsits, sometimes the nail pops need to
be addressed first.  Use the hammer for that."  I hope that my admitting
this isn't somehow undermining your point; I just had to get it off my
chest.

> This is my way of saying that I concur with Paul's assessment about
> discussing with outside repositories.  
> 
> One way to be helpful could be, if we had an FAQ with a question that
> would have an answer of, "Don't cross the repository streams," we can
> just tell people that if they are using non-Core or Extras repositories,
> they may have conflicts between packages in those files, yadda yadda
> yadda.

Since Extras became fully open to community participation, there's a lot
fewer problems with repository conflicts.  Most of the third-party repos
have tended to drop things that are appearing in Extras, meaning that
most conflicts occur between different third-party repos.  A few of them
are consolidating to address the problem.  Some claim there is no
problem.  Some are correct.  

Since so many of them are offering legally encumbered solutions, it's a
touchy situation for us to address.  Telling people "don't cross the
repo streams" (I like this one!) may not be as accurate as "don't cross
*certain* repo streams," but we need to stay out of that morass AFAIC.

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE                          http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
 Fedora Documentation Project: http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/docs/
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