[Fedora-packaging] packaging Digest, Vol 102, Issue 15

Sat Aug 17 16:00:53 UTC 2013

I'm referring to the official naming policy to make this rename request and
this isn't the result of a personal preference. So far, the rule saying the
package name needs to match the upstream tarball is still not mentioned
anywhere, and is totally absurd to me, for the several following  reasons:

1) The package name needs to reflect the project, not its tarball name.

As you said in the rename request ticket, using upper-case or lower-case
originate from an individual's history, so the author in this case probably
has used upper-case to ship his tarball because he's mainly a Windows user.
However, Linux users tend to use lower-case naming. We should also keep in
mind there isn't always a single "word" to call a project. People need to
make the difference between canonical, formal and complete name, and the
name chosen for the tarball isn't always the best for a package name. For
example, we could have named our tarball the several way, and we can still
do it:
- sfml-2.0.tar.gz
- SFML-2.0.tar.gz
- sf-2.0.tar.gz
- simple_and_fast_multimedia_library-2.0.tar.gz
- Simple-and-Fast-Multimedia-Library-2.0.tar.gz

I'm sure we can find a lot of ambiguous cases.

2) This invalidates the upstream's prefrence rule.

3) Many authors include a suffix or prefix to the project name to give a
hint about what language this library is for. Reusing this suffix or prefix
is silly, unless this does make the difference. I'm the author of pySFML
and although I use the word "pySFML" to name my project and to refer to the
binding for SFML, I ship my tarball under python-sfml-x.y.z.targ.gz.

4) You'd no longer have control on the package name.
5) What about tarball using fancy characters ?

Even if it's out-of-the-subject, I recall that allowing upper-case in a
package distribution context wasn't a good idea. I'm probably not the only
one to be pissed off to remember the packages cases and it wouldn't serve
any other purpose than differentiating two packages by their cases but
won't happen since this is also a bad idea.

To conclude, I would say we can still rename our tarball from SFML to sfml
but I consider it's Fedora's job to pull our tarball and make it fit its
policy, not the other way round.

Sonkun.

On Sat, Aug 17, 2013 at 2:00 PM,
<packaging-request at lists.fedoraproject.org>wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Package naming guidelines (Michael Schwendt)
>    2. Re: Package naming guidelines (Ralf Corsepius)
>    3. Re: Package naming guidelines (Michael Schwendt)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 19:13:23 +0200
> From: Michael Schwendt <mschwendt at gmail.com>
> To: <packaging at lists.fedoraproject.org>
> Subject: [Fedora-packaging] Package naming guidelines
> Message-ID: <20130816191323.09aee25e at faldor.intranet>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> Bad timing as weekend has arrived for many, but please, I would appreciate
> comments on this one *and* the earlier feedback in the ticket:
>
>   https://bugzilla.redhat.com/997679
>   -> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/997679#c14
>
> > Ralf Corsepius 2013-08-16 11:56:46 EDT
> >
> > You are forcing me to do something I've never done in Fedora before:
> >
> > (With my FPC-member hat on) This rename request violates the FPG,
> > because the upstream zip-ball is called SFML,
> > ...
> > Source0:
> http://www.sfml-dev.org/download/sfml/%{version}/SFML-%{version}-sources.zip
> > ...
> > It therefore MUST NOT be ACCEPTED.
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 04:44:50 +0200
> From: Ralf Corsepius <rc040203 at freenet.de>
> To: Discussion of RPM packaging standards and practices for Fedora
>         <packaging at lists.fedoraproject.org>
> Subject: Re: [Fedora-packaging] Package naming guidelines
> Message-ID: <520EE3A2.9090007 at freenet.de>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>
> On 08/16/2013 07:13 PM, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> > Bad timing as weekend has arrived for many, but please, I would
> appreciate
> > comments on this one *and* the earlier feedback in the ticket:
> >
> >    https://bugzilla.redhat.com/997679
> >    -> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/997679#c14
>
> Executive summary:
>
> In https://bugzilla.redhat.com/997679 the package maintainer of SFML
> requests the SFML package to be renamed from SFML to sfml.
>
> I told him this would violated the FPG, because packages are supposed to
> be named to after the tarball. However he continues to insist on this
> renamer and sent comment https://bugzilla.redhat.com/997679#c14 in
> response to make unmisunderstandibly clear that he leave me no choice
> but to reject his package rename request.
>
> >> Ralf Corsepius 2013-08-16 11:56:46 EDT
> >>
> >> You are forcing me to do something I've never done in Fedora before:
> >>
> >> (With my FPC-member hat on) This rename request violates the FPG,
> >> because the upstream zip-ball is called SFML,
> >> ...
> >> Source0:
> http://www.sfml-dev.org/download/sfml/%{version}/SFML-%{version}-sources.zip
> >> ...
> >> It therefore MUST NOT be ACCEPTED.
> > --
>
> Ralf
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 10:13:06 +0200
> From: Michael Schwendt <mschwendt at gmail.com>
> To: Discussion of RPM packaging standards and practices for Fedora
>         <packaging at lists.fedoraproject.org>
> Subject: Re: [Fedora-packaging] Package naming guidelines
> Message-ID: <20130817101306.7ab58a98 at faldor.intranet>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> On Sat, 17 Aug 2013 04:44:50 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>
> > On 08/16/2013 07:13 PM, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> > > Bad timing as weekend has arrived for many, but please, I would
> appreciate
> > > comments on this one *and* the earlier feedback in the ticket:
> > >
> > >    https://bugzilla.redhat.com/997679
> > >    -> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/997679#c14
> >
> > Executive summary:
> >
> > In https://bugzilla.redhat.com/997679 the package maintainer of SFML
> > requests the SFML package to be renamed from SFML to sfml.
> >
> > I told him this would violated the FPG, because packages are supposed to
> > be named to after the tarball. However he continues to insist on this
> > renamer and sent comment https://bugzilla.redhat.com/997679#c14 in
> > response to make unmisunderstandibly clear that he leave me no choice
> > but to reject his package rename request.
>
> A few more details (the ticket comments aren't many, though):
>
> * In a previous Package Review request (bug 652085), it has been
> lower-case naming (sfml.spec and src.rpm). Different submitter and
> different
> reviewer as with the upper-case SFML package submission, but with no
> mention
> of the lower-case packages in other dists, and with no discussion of the
> naming guidelines.
>
> * One of the several bindings has been packaged in Fedora using lower-case
> naming and with a lower-case "-sfml" in its subpackage name, too. Same
> submitter as with the lower-case "sfml", but even another different
> reviewer.
>
> * Several of the bindings (there's the plan to package more of them) use
> a variety of mixed-case names, some all upper-case, others all lower-case.
> Especially with regard to Fedora's %{parent}-%{child} naming guidelines
> for add-on packages, it would get difficult and confusing to name the
> package family properly. ( http://www.sfml-dev.org/download/bindings.php )
>
> *
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:NamingGuidelines#Case_Sensitivity
> |
> | [...] Keep in mind to respect the wishes of the upstream maintainers.
> | However, if they do not express any preference of case, you should
> | default to lowercase naming.
>
> * https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:NamingGuidelines#General_Naming
> |
> | If this package has been packaged by other distributions/packagers
> | in the past, then you should try to match their name for consistency.
>
>
> ------------------------------
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> End of packaging Digest, Vol 102, Issue 15
> ******************************************
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