[repo-coord] I want Matthias for president! (was: Scratching the itch)

[Panu Matilainen]

On Wed, 5 May 2004, Bent Terp wrote:

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> On Tuesday 04 May 2004 18:15, Matthias Saou wrote:
> > Dag Wieers wrote :
> > > > I believe the only repo which hasn't given me a single problem EVER, is
> > > > freshrpms.
> 
> I second that opinion - read again "the ONLY".
> 
> > > All hail the list-owner !
> >
> > C'mmon, he's been lucky, that's all :-)
> 
> Do NOT believe in luck, DEPEND on it ;-)
> 
> Matthias, would you be willing to act as interrepo authority for the kernel 
> package?
> 
> It's getting a wee bit tiresome to try and install kernel-module-* (or *-kmdl 
> for that matter) only to find apt trying to downgrade my kernel :-(
> 
> I suppose this is merely one example of the problems arising from multiple 
> repos packaging the same software.
> 
> If (and that seems to be a pretty big if right now) we could persuade all 
> repos with kernel modules to build against the same kernel, it might be 
> easier to mix'n'match kernel modules from different repos as we do today for 
> user space packages.
> 
> Next big step would then be some sort of gentleman's agreement not to start 
> building what other's have already done - IMNotSoHO (*) that seems like a 
> complete waste of time in this first place, so hopefully we could get the 
> others to agree to this.

My humble take on this subject - if you folks really want a 
"meta-repository" consisting of several individual repositories then I 
think the following are the minimal steps towards sanity:

1) Have a central "database" of who owns what and others DO NOT repackage
what's owned by somebody else. If somebody wants to package software xyz
completely differently, provide some enhanced version etc, create a
minirepo/component for it for those who have special interest in that 
package.

2) Package kernel-modules for official FC/RHL/whatever kernels only in the 
main repository.

3) If you need/want to repackage and provide FOLK kernel or whatever, put 
the kernel into a separate repository/component and if you wish, put
the kernel modules rebuilt against that into the same repo/component. This 
is mostly just a specific case of 1) of course but the kernel is rather 
special entity in many ways, including the fact that having kernel-x.y.z 
installed doesn't mean its capabilities are present on the system.

4) Don't include repos/components which are known to conflict (eg 
special kernel stuff or other modified FC/in-other-repo packages) in 
default configurations and warn users about the possible consequences of 
using such repositories.

	- Panu -