Re: RFC: Drop python-rpm-generators for the subpackage to be built as part of the rpm package itself

[Neal Gompa]

On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 3:06 AM, Panu Matilainen  wrote:
> On 01/14/2018 04:46 PM, Neal Gompa wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 14, 2018 at 7:22 AM, Igor Gnatenko
> >  wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2018-01-11 at 10:37 -0500, Neal Gompa wrote:
> > > > Hey,
> > > >
> > > > As I was looking at the rpm.spec and fixing up a small bit of the
> > > > build for the Python bindings, it occurred to me that we have left
> > > > python-rpm-generators out of sync with rpm.
> > > >
> > > > I'm wondering if it even makes sense to keep that as a separate source
> > > > package, and instead build the python3-rpm-generators subpackage from
> > > > the main rpm package. I'd much rather do that as it makes it much
> > > > easier to keep everything in sync.
> > > >
> > > > We inherited the split from Fedora, who did it for their failed
> > > > modularity effort to try to make a base system environment that was
> > > > only C and shell but also contain the rpm-build package (I didn't say
> > > > it made sense...). From the point of view of Mageia, who is unlikely
> > > > to attempt what Fedora is doing, I'm not sure there's a particular
> > > > value in doing so. I was not even particularly enthused about this
> > > > when Fedora did it...
> > > >
> > > > Insofar as bytecompilation issues are concerned, we should probably
> > > > rename the file on install to not have the .py suffix, so that the
> > > > Python interpreter doesn't consider it as something to bytecompile.
> > > > That will allow us to avoid the issues that necessitate python -> rpm
> > > > -> python rebuilds.
> > > >
> > > > What do you all think?
> > >
> > > To be honest, I would like to separate even upstream to its own
> > > repository. I
> > > don't think it makes sense to keep it part of RPM itself.
> > >
> > > CCing python SIG and RPM maintainers for their feedback.
> > > -Igor Gnatenko
> >
> > If we were going to do something like that, I'd actually like to have
> > a repository in rpm-software-management where we can contribute
> > dependency generators of all kinds beyond the basic ones included in
> > RPM for everyone to use. It makes no sense for people to reinvent the
> > same things over and over simply because they didn't know it was
> > already written somewhere.
>
> Yes, that's kinda been the idea ever since making it possible in rpm 4.9.x,
> and which is why I've encouraged people splitting their generators out of
> main rpm package. It's just the common upstream part that is lacking...

Now that we have the GitHub organization, I don't see why we couldn't
have a repository that could serve this purpose.

Don't get me wrong, I think there needs to be a basic set of
dependency generators in the main RPM repo. The current ones are fine
in the main repository, but there's *a lot* of generators out there,
written by Fedora, SUSE, Mageia, and others. Putting them somewhere in
one place can help us reduce the duplication and ensure things are
consistent, as well as helping to improve the quality of those
generators anyway.