Packaging rant

[John Aldrich]

Ok, after the problems I had yesterday with Akonadi and KMail, and reading 
some other postings about how so many programs are integrated into one 
humongous RPM, it got me to thinking. Why do we *need* to have one 
ginormous RPM for a bunch of different apps? Why can't we just have one RPM 
per app? Even if we have a few "base" RPMs that multiple programs require, 
at least then we can pick/choose which apps we want to install. 

For example, someone on the list was complaining about wanting to get rid 
of Dragon Player. There's no reason that we need to have one huge "kde-
multimedia" package that includes everything, in my opinion.

It is my considered opinion that we should be able to selectively install 
parts of major sub-systems as long as it does not break the entire sub-
system. For example, the Dragon Player previously mentioned. I've never 
used it. I prefer XMMS for my multi-media player. Why should I be forced to 
install the KDE medi player just to be able to have other "multimedia" apps 
from KDE?

I think we ought to think about how we package apps. Let's just have a 
"base" app that includes the required subsystems for everything to work, 
and then make other RPMs available for apps that "hook into" that sub-
system.

I really would like to hear why this is not possible as it seems like a lot 
of "junk" is forced upon us as we make these huge packages that contain 
everything.