I recently took rpm under my wing and I plan to update it a bit. There
is already 4.8.0 masked in tree for testing (go ahead and try if you
want, just backup your package db beforehand). I have a few questions
for the list though...I would assume a big portion of Gentoo users don't
come into contact with rpms that often.

>=rpm-4.7 introduced certain changes to rpm files created by them which
makes some features unavailable when using older rpm versions. Would you
consider this a problem (in other words: are you creating rpms with
gentoo and use them someplace else)? 4.7 was released over a year ago so
I would say most major rpm-based distributions already support those new
features.

A bigger question I have for the list is this: We currently have two
completely different versions of rpm as one package. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPM_Package_Manager#Forks for overview of
situation.

app-arch/rpm-5* is horse of a different color from 4.* branch yet it
still resides in app-arch/rpm. rpm-5* is hard masked since 2008, and it
is not supported by any big players (Novell, Red Hat and Mandriva all
use rpm-4.* fork). Question is...what to do with it. I could move it to
app-arch/rpm5 (a bit weird to have package with only one ebuild that is
hard-masked I guess) or simply remove. There is no bug filed against
rpm-5, probably because it has been hard-masked all the time. Moreover
if I am not mistaken database is not compatible between 4 and 5 so if
someone accidentally upgrades...he/she is screwed. That was original
reason for masking rpm-5 as far as I know.

Summary:
1. Do you create rpms with Gentoo and use them someplace else?
2. What's your take on (re)moving app-arch/rpm-5?

Also any other ideas on use of rpm on Gentoo would be appreciated. For
example rpm.eclass is still bit unknown for me for now...I still have to
see what's it about :-)

Disclaimer: By day I work @ Red Hat, which makes decision about removing
rpm-5 all the more complicated for me.

--
Stanislav Ochotnicky
PGP: 0x71A1677C

В Чтв, 06/05/2010 в 00:34 +0200, Stanislav Ochotnicky пишет:
> Moreover if I am not mistaken database is not compatible between 4 and
> 5 so if someone accidentally upgrades...he/she is screwed. That was
> original reason for masking rpm-5 as far as I know.

It was hardmasked because some packages fail to build with rpm-5. And
although currently patches exist I'm not sure if anybody tested/applied
them yet.

> Summary:
> 2. What's your take on (re)moving app-arch/rpm-5?

It could be SLOTed. But since nobody maintains it it's better to drop it
from the tree with a clear message in ChangeLog why it was dropped.

BTW, thanks for taking care of rpm. Currently I don't use it but I
needed it some years ago and it was very pleasant to have it in the
tree.

--
Peter.

On Wednesday 05 May 2010 18:34:44 Stanislav Ochotnicky wrote:
> >=rpm-4.7 introduced certain changes to rpm files created by them which
> makes some features unavailable when using older rpm versions. Would you
> consider this a problem (in other words: are you creating rpms with
> gentoo and use them someplace else)? 4.7 was released over a year ago so
> I would say most major rpm-based distributions already support those new
> features.

i wouldnt sweat it ... stick with upstream and let people dealing with
backwards compat take care of the issue themselves (install an older distro)

> 2. What's your take on (re)moving app-arch/rpm-5?

users requested rpm-5, so if you simply want to rename it, i dont see a
problem with it. allowing the two to be installed simultaneously would be
neat, but if it isnt possible without a lot of hassle, oh well.

> Also any other ideas on use of rpm on Gentoo would be appreciated. For
> example rpm.eclass is still bit unknown for me for now...I still have to
> see what's it about :-)

rpm.eclass exists merely to work with .rpm files in ebuilds. i.e. someone
only releases a rpm of source/binaries, so rather than manually re-package,
the ebuild fetches the rpm directly and then unpacks it with the eclass. it
isnt used for anything else (like creating rpms).
-mike