Forwarding this here too.
-------- Forwarded Message -------- From: Alexander Larsson alexl@redhat.com Reply-To: List for Fedora Package Maintainers fedora-maintainers@redhat.com To: List for Fedora Package Maintainers fedora-maintainers@redhat.com Subject: devel packages with only one .pc file Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2006 15:11:26 +0200
I've recently got several bugs against package involving basically splitting out only one pkg-config file into a -devel package, because the packaging guidelines says so. I've done this for a couple of packages, but its starting to get very ridicolous.
The one-file -devel package is totally useless, all it leads to is: * Existance of -devel package means we bloat the 64bit distro with the 32bit version of the main package too. * Developers, script or packages fail because they want to use the .pc file but the -devel package is not installed. * The package metadata (like changelog) stored twice in the rpm database.
I can't really think of any advantages. What exactly is the reasoning behind this rule?
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Jesse Keating wrote:
Forwarding this here too.
-------- Forwarded Message -------- From: Alexander Larsson alexl@redhat.com Reply-To: List for Fedora Package Maintainers fedora-maintainers@redhat.com To: List for Fedora Package Maintainers fedora-maintainers@redhat.com Subject: devel packages with only one .pc file Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2006 15:11:26 +0200
I've recently got several bugs against package involving basically splitting out only one pkg-config file into a -devel package, because the packaging guidelines says so. I've done this for a couple of packages, but its starting to get very ridicolous.
The one-file -devel package is totally useless
I would tend to agree, a single .pc file -devel pkg is a bit silly. Perhaps the existing rule:
- MUST: Files used by pkgconfig (.pc files) must be in a -devel package.
probably ought to be amended.
-- Rex
On Mon, Sep 04, 2006 at 08:53:46AM -0500, Rex Dieter wrote:
Jesse Keating wrote:
Forwarding this here too.
-------- Forwarded Message -------- From: Alexander Larsson alexl@redhat.com Reply-To: List for Fedora Package Maintainers fedora-maintainers@redhat.com To: List for Fedora Package Maintainers fedora-maintainers@redhat.com Subject: devel packages with only one .pc file Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2006 15:11:26 +0200
I've recently got several bugs against package involving basically splitting out only one pkg-config file into a -devel package, because the packaging guidelines says so. I've done this for a couple of packages, but its starting to get very ridicolous.
The one-file -devel package is totally useless
I would tend to agree, a single .pc file -devel pkg is a bit silly. Perhaps the existing rule:
- MUST: Files used by pkgconfig (.pc files) must be in a -devel package.
probably ought to be amended.
What good is a pc file w/o any other development bits? Maybe the package is question has a bogus pc file that ought to be rm'd instead of split off into a subpackage?
Rex Dieter wrote :
Jesse Keating wrote:
Forwarding this here too.
-------- Forwarded Message -------- From: Alexander Larsson alexl@redhat.com Reply-To: List for Fedora Package Maintainers fedora-maintainers@redhat.com To: List for Fedora Package Maintainers fedora-maintainers@redhat.com Subject: devel packages with only one .pc file Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2006 15:11:26 +0200
I've recently got several bugs against package involving basically splitting out only one pkg-config file into a -devel package, because the packaging guidelines says so. I've done this for a couple of packages, but its starting to get very ridicolous.
The one-file -devel package is totally useless
I would tend to agree, a single .pc file -devel pkg is a bit silly. Perhaps the existing rule:
- MUST: Files used by pkgconfig (.pc files) must be in a -devel package.
probably ought to be amended.
Well, if the .pc file has its cflags or libs show that the package requires other libraries (some X libs, or gtk stuff, or...), then it does make sense to split the -devel package out, since it will not just contain one file, but also other -devel package requirements that we definitely don't want to be forcing on all simple users of the runtime bits.
Matthias
On 9/4/06, Matthias Saou thias@spam.spam.spam.spam.spam.spam.spam.egg.and.spam.freshrpms.net wrote:
Rex Dieter wrote :
Jesse Keating wrote:
Forwarding this here too.
-------- Forwarded Message -------- From: Alexander Larsson alexl@redhat.com Reply-To: List for Fedora Package Maintainers fedora-maintainers@redhat.com To: List for Fedora Package Maintainers fedora-maintainers@redhat.com Subject: devel packages with only one .pc file Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2006 15:11:26 +0200
I've recently got several bugs against package involving basically splitting out only one pkg-config file into a -devel package, because the packaging guidelines says so. I've done this for a couple of packages, but its starting to get very ridicolous.
The one-file -devel package is totally useless
I would tend to agree, a single .pc file -devel pkg is a bit silly. Perhaps the existing rule:
- MUST: Files used by pkgconfig (.pc files) must be in a -devel package.
probably ought to be amended.
Well, if the .pc file has its cflags or libs show that the package requires other libraries (some X libs, or gtk stuff, or...), then it does make sense to split the -devel package out, since it will not just contain one file, but also other -devel package requirements that we definitely don't want to be forcing on all simple users of the runtime bits.
+1
This has been discussed before and it was decided that a .pc file should be in a devel package even if it is the only file in the package for the reason given by Matthias.
And I don't see it being worth the effort to try and come up with exceptions to the rule. There is barely any overhead involved in creating a single file devel package (AFAIK).
On Mon, 2006-09-04 at 10:59 -0700, Christopher Stone wrote:
And I don't see it being worth the effort to try and come up with exceptions to the rule. There is barely any overhead involved in creating a single file devel package (AFAIK).
There *are* some overheads, though -- you duplicate the vast majority of the package information in the rpmdb and in metadata (thus, more bits to download for updates, etc). It also means that the package becomes multilib[1]
Also, I've now seen pkgconfig files used for things other than development tasks, although I think that might be kind of crack ;-)
Jeremy
[1] The current mechanism is that we want all devel packages to be available as multilib as that makes it something a computer can do rather than something a human maintains[2]. Which is pretty sensible on the whole. But it starts to show some fuzziness at the edges when we talk about only vaguely arch-specific stuff (mono and java are what come to mind here) [2] A few years of a human maintaining has shown that it doesn't work :-)
Hi,
As the person who actually filed the bugs...
The one-file -devel package is totally useless, all it leads to is:
- Existance of -devel package means we bloat the 64bit distro with the
32bit version of the main package too.
Is there actually a reason for doing this? I could never understand it.
- Developers, script or packages fail because they want to use the .pc
file but the -devel package is not installed.
And? Just requires adding the devel package - hardly an amazingly difficult act!
I can't really think of any advantages. What exactly is the reasoning behind this rule?
This point was discussed at length when the mono packaging rules were being done. Most (if not all) mono packages ONLY have the .pc file in the devel package - mono-debugger is the exception to that but that is a special case.
My personal feeling was (at the time) - bloody stupid idea, but now I can see the point.
TTFN
Paul
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Rex Dieter