Hi, On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 10:08:06AM -0700, Adam Williamson wrote: > A 'metapackage' is an actual package shipped in the repositories which > contains no files, and whose raison d'etre is to express some > dependencies. There are a few of these in Fedora, xorg-x11-drivers being > the classic example, but they are generally strongly discouraged. The > idea is that Fedora uses comps groups to express the concept 'this group > of packages forms some kind of cohesive set and can be installed > together', not metapackages. Some things in favor of metapackages: 1. The packager has to know that such thing as comps exists. (I know about it. I have even seen patches for it, so I know it is some sort of XML. But I have no idea where to look for it. Is there a repo for it? "fedpkg clone -B comps" was unsuccessful.) On the other side, the packager already knows how to make a (sub-)package that depends on other package(s). 2. A metapackage uses rpm syntax for specifying the dependencies. No need to learn anything new. 3. A metapackage is under the packager's control. A comps group is not. (I doubt packagers have commit access to to comps repo (if there is a repo). That means creating a patch, opening a bug, waiting for reaction (probably for days),... tadda yadda... Or I can create a subpackage and be done in a minute.) D. -- devel mailing list devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
