[Fedora-packaging] nodejs-ws - should I change it to a noarch

[Troy Dawson]

On 02/04/2015 03:43 AM, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> On 02/04/2015 09:47 AM, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
>> (Sorry for top-post)
>> I'm forwarding this to the packaging list for input on the
>> arch-to-noarch question.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 2015-02-03 at 10:42 -0600, Troy Dawson wrote:
>>> Hi All,
>>> I was going through, updating my nodejs package for rawhide (f22) when I
>>> found the nodejs-ws went from binary to pure javascript with version
>>> 0.7.1.
>>>
>>> So, my question is this.  Do I continue to leave it as an arch, so I
>>> don't break thing, so should I go to noarch.
>>>
>>> Switching from an arch to a noarch has bitten me in the past when people
>>> do updates.  I don't know if that is still the case.
> I vaguely recall yum once had problems with such changes and vaguely
> recall packagers having had problems related to %{_isa} handling.
> However, I am not aware of such issues having happened in more recent
> past and believe these issues to be resolved. A couple of experiments
> would quickly tell if these considerations still apply.
> 
> There also have been packaging issues with corner-cases, when a
> noarch-package wasn't applicable to some particular architecture.
> 
> 
> But I recall rel-eng had (has?) broader problems with such arch<->noarch
> switches, thanks to them having issues with their tooling (createrepo,
> mash (?), ... ), which did not process such switches correctly (e.g.
> old.<arch>.rpm packages were not removed upon package updates, which
> switched to no-arch).
> 
>>> What are people's thoughts.  Should I switch it to a noarch?
> Let me put it this way: Such switches must me safe on rawhide, if they
> unhide problems, rel-eng needs address these.
> 
> Ralf

Thank you for everyone's input.  I will switch it to noarch in rawhide,
and if things break, I'll work with rel-eng.
Troy