[Fedora-packaging] Package rename breakage - wat do?

[T.C. Hollingsworth]

On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 11:03 AM, Toshio Kuratomi <a.badger at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 05/02/2013 07:41 AM, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
>> > On 05/02/2013 06:55 AM, Tom Hughes wrote:
>> >> On 02/05/13 08:38, T.C. Hollingsworth wrote:
>> >>> 3. do nothing; if you install only part of a single bodhi
>> >>> update and it breaks you get to keep both pieces
>> >
>> >
>> > FYI, this is not technically permissible. The packaging guidelines
>> > require clean upgrade paths. If you need to install multiple pieces
>> > of a Bodhi update for things to work, they need to be arranged
>> > with Requires/Obsoletes/Conflicts appropriately so that they are
>> > pulled in automatically. Anything else is a bug in the packaging.
>> >
> I'm not sure about this... I seem to recall other cases where the FPC ruled
> that end users *could* install pieces of an update and get broken systems.
> The right thing to do was to update all of the pieces instead.
>
> If you could point to some guidelines that imply the opposite it might be
> that there's some finer grained distinction when it's appropriate and when
> it's not.  Or alternately, someone needs to reopen some tickets saying that
> the precedent actually is for us to take care of these.
>
> Here's the latest example I could find:
> https://fedorahosted.org/fpc/ticket/241
>
> and Timestamp 17:47:49
> http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting-1/2013-02-06/fpc.2013-02-06-17.02.log.html
>
> This is slightly different as it is crossing a release boundary (f17+
> updates to f18) but it's similar in nature.

That's where I remember a policy like this from!  I helped out with
the package reviews for the (very cool) 3D Printing feature, including
the review this issue popped up in.

>> >> Another option is to say that a rename of a node module is not
>> >> what the rename guidelines call a "compatible enough replacement"
>> >> which would mean the new package would not provide the old name,
>> >> but would still obsolete it.
>> >
>> >
>> > That's not necessarily true. If it's a one-to-one replacement
>> > (except for the name), then I'd suggest that option 1 is the best
>> > plan for the short term, but that we should open Bugzilla tickets
>> > against all known packages depending on the old name to update in
>> > their next releases.
>> >
>> > If just adding a symlink to make it a full replacement is enough to
>> > do the job, that's definitely the least impact. No need to force
>> > an update until the other package is ready for it.
>> >
> One note here:  From the sounds of the original post, we're talking about a
> very few (just one?) package here and that package has already been updated.
> If that's true, adding a versioned Requires/Conflict pair or telling people
> that all the pieces have to be updated seems like the right thing.

Yes, just nodejs-request, although breaking that breaks many other things.

-T.C.