Ralf Corsepius wrote:
On Mon, 2004-11-29 at 15:11 -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Mon, Nov 29, 2004 at 06:44:10PM +0000, Michael A. Peters wrote:
Another thing - I hate beuracracy but this may be needed - a neutral naming authority. In cases where packages conflict simply because of different package name, if the naming can't be fixed between the repos themselves, let an independent community group decide.
Fedora Extras _should be_ that independent community group.
1. Fedora Extras is run and conducted by RH.
2. It is RH, who until now has refused to cooperate with developers on selecting N-V-R conventions. Until now, each of the 3rd parties (which Fedora.US had been one of) has invented its own conventions.
Not really. They actually are consulting with each other to try to keep up compatibility. But most of the maintainers of the packages in question simply take their name and version number from the source, which tends to minimize the "N-V" problems. The R problems are another story altogether.
3. N-V-R's are only one kind package conflicts being involved in incompatibilities which occur when mixing repositories. There are many more, much worser hidden package dependencies "occasional users" will rarely notice.
If tree falls in the forest but nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? My counterquestion would be, "Does it really matter?" For the user whom it does matter then (s)he most likely will notice and will let the maintainer know about it, which chances are (s)he is already in communication with the other package's maintainer as they try to coordinate to correct the problem. It really isn't as big of an issue as it might have been in the past.
---- Peace, William
