[Bins] .spec file for producing an RPM

[Guillaume Rousse]

Kevin R. Bulgrien wrote:
> On Sunday 19 September 2004 03:58, Guillaume Rousse wrote:
> 
> 
>>The 10.0 package is 1.1.25-2mdk, and it installs all templates
>>correctly: joi, jab, default, satyap
> 
> 
> Hmm... ok.  And marc, and petrus?
In 1.1.25 ? I just checked, there were not included.

>>It's evil to suggest people to use self-made rpms instead of official
>>ones. And it is evil to fork existing work. If you have corrections to
>>do, suggest them to the maintainer rather.
> 
> 
> Whatever.  I guess you just don't understand.  I think it is evil to hold
> on to a .spec file instead of making it available in the tarball so people
> can make fresh rpms if they want to do it more quickly than the
> maintainer or distribution does.
There are different reasons:

First, you're encouraging people to mix packages from different origins, 
leading to unhappy situations, instead of understanding how a 
distribution is managed. The best exemple is that yourself you didn't 
used the adequate bins package for your own distro.

Second, you're pushing them on manual build & installation procedure, 
instead on relying on adequate tools. On mandrake, all you need to do is 
'urpmi bins', and eveything should work out-of-the box. If it doesn't, 
then you can blame the packager. Agreed, it won't be the latest version, 
which is only available in the development release of the distribution. 
But you still can backport it if you need.

Too many people just consider a distribution as a bunch of freely 
intermixable packages, whereas we the packager works very hard on 
achieving smooth integration and interoperability. What you are 
proposing here is to bypass this work silently, instead of educating users.

> The last few releases of Mandrake
> all have broken drivers for my scanner.  If it weren't for making my
> own RPM's I'd still be stuck using Mandrake 8.2.
How many bug did you report in mdk bugzilla ?

>>>I added a directory in the tarball called "rpm", and put a bins.spec
>>>file in it, then make a src rpm so that I at least can keep it around and
>>>not lose it the next time a new tarball comes out.
>>>
>>>I would like to offer the modified .spec file...  I doubt that Mandrake
>>>would mind, but I guess I could ask the package maintainer to be
>>>sure.
>>
>>I am the maintainer of the mdk bins package...
> 
> 
> Yes, I recognized the name before I even read the e-mail.  It is
> unfortunate that making a spec file available to the community
> is met with such resentment.  With the unwarranted accusation
> of "evil", one certainly is not encouraged that the maintainer
> will be at all cooperative.  By the way, I had no intention of
> forking the .spec file if someone said they would include it.
> Perhaps you made an unfortunate assumption?
No, I just think you don't understand how mandrake works, which is not 
blamable after all because it isn't documented anywhere.

The latest bins package is always available wordlwide on cooker mirrors, 
and its spec on mdk CVS 
(http://cvs.mandrakesoft.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/contrib-SPECS/bins/). 
Why would you want to duplicate it in bins archive ? And how do you 
intent to sync each time produce a new release ?