On Fri, 17 Dec 2004, Michael Schwendt wrote: > On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 12:27:57 -0500, John Dennis wrote: > > > On Fri, 2004-12-17 at 11:56, Dag Wieers wrote: > > > If you use different repositories and there's no coordination, there's no > > > proper way to compare the release tags anyway. The discussion about either > > > the disttag or the vendortag are useless. > > > > I agree with Dag here, at the moment if one tries to compare packages > > between two distinctly different distributions the comparison is > > meaningless. While it may not be ideal the current mechanism makes > > strong assumptions concerning common buildroots, a constraint difficult > > to assert compliance with across differing distributions. While in > > practice installing packages from different distributions might work > > there is no assurance it will and no one likely would come to the rescue > > should problems arise if one is engaged in this practice. > > > > That fact however does not diminish the usefulness of having the > > distribution name encoded in the rpm name for the benefit of human > > beings. It does however require for any given package in a given > > distribution use a consistent naming scheme so as not to alter the > > result of comparisons. > > It doesn't add any value. When you receive a bug report about > foo-2.0-1.i386.rpm (assuming it's your package) and the reporter > referred to foo-2.0-1 specifically (because the bugzilla form asks him > to do so), have you ever verified whether it was really your package > and not an arbitrary one found at rpmseek.com? > Other example. Fedora.us used the 0.fdr prefix. After some time, in > message boards, helpful users concluded that a package would be from > fedora.us because it has .fdr in the package name. But there are other > repositories and individuals who use the same repo tag, and everybody > is free to use it too. Which is why I considered .fdr. for fedora.us as a bad choice for a repotag. > The same applies to distribution tags. As long as '.FC3' and friends > are not too common, they stand out when you look at a package name. > As soon as many other packagers use the same dist tags, they don't > add anything other than influencing RPM version comparison. How does it influence the RPM version comparison in a relevant way ? -- dag wieers, dag@xxxxxxxxxx, http://dag.wieers.com/ -- [all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power]