[PATCHES] os-release: Populate VARIANT and VARIANT_ID values

[Stephen Gallagher]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Matthew Miller" <mattdm at fedoraproject.org>
> To: "Stephen Gallagher" <sgallagh at redhat.com>
> Cc: "Kalev Lember" <kalevlember at gmail.com>, rel-eng at lists.fedoraproject.org
> Sent: Friday, May 8, 2015 10:30:28 AM
> Subject: Re: [PATCHES] os-release: Populate VARIANT and VARIANT_ID values
> 
> On Fri, May 08, 2015 at 09:55:59AM -0400, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
> > We could easily do this as well, if that was desired, but that should
> > be a separate change. I'd slightly prefer to do that in Rawhide for
> > F23 and not on F22, just on the off-chance that anyone is actually
> > doing anything with PRETTY_NAME, which has been a standard value for
> > a long time.
> 
> Agree with in Rawhide. What about:
> 
> * change VERSION to just "23",
> * PRETTY_NAME to "Fedora $VERSION"
> 
> and update places which use $PRETTY_NAME to use "$PRETTY NAME
> ($VARIANT)" instead if appropriate? (Because in some cases the
> non-specific pretty name might be more appropriate.)
> 

For the record, while /etc/os-release is meant to be source-able into a Bourne-compatible shell, it's at the very least frowned upon for it to have any variable substitutions in it. So let's please not do that.

That being said, the way we actually create this file is by complete substitution of the file, not by constructing it from component pieces. Each fedora-release-$EDITION package drops a file called os-release-$EDITION into place on the system and then symlinks it to /usr/lib/os-release if no symlink currently exists (which is how we can avoid collisions if someone installs fedora-release-workstation on a Fedora Server; it will just not do anything).


> I guess PRETTY_NAME="Fedora $VERSION ($VARIANT)" would also be okay,
> but I'm imagining there might be some cases where having it separate
> might be useful. (Maybe not.)
> 

If we chose to do something like this, it should use literal values, not the substitutions (It was unclear if that was what you were saying).

So
PRETTY_NAME="Fedora 23 (Server Edition)"


> Also, Stephen, a question — should spins set VARIANT and VARIENT_ID?
> 

That's a question with more to it than you might think. Based on the way we're creating the os-release file, if a spin wanted to have a different VARIANT and VARIANT_ID, it would need to ship a spin-specific fedora-release-$SPIN package containing this os-release file.

The only reason to have VARIANTs defined here are for divergent configuration defaults, which we've previously asserted is only permissible with WG or FESCo permission, which is less likely for most spins. (I could see some of the more well-maintained spins like KDE possibly making such a request).

I'd say that spins should not set this value unless they have been granted permission by FESCo and at that point we should extend the fedora-release package to produce a fedora-release-$SPIN subpackage for them that handles this. I don't want us handing out permission to generate os-release willy-nilly or it devalues os-release.