RPM 4.10 released [LWN.net]

RPM 4.10 released

Posted May 27, 2012 16:27 UTC (Sun) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

Fedora packaging follows Fedora packaging guidelines which are easily accessible. How RPM is used has evolved over time. If you are awaren't aware of that, you would see conflict in such instances.

RPM 4.10 released

Posted May 28, 2012 2:55 UTC (Mon) by jamesh (guest, #1159) [Link]

I realise that the Fedora guidelines have changed over time.

Both the Fedora versioning guidelines and the Debian use of '~' are attempts to handle upstream releases or snapshots whose version numbers didn't match the package manager's rules.

My point is that if you've got a part of the package name that is nominally "the version of the upstream release", then it seems cleaner to identify what upstream release you're using in that field rather than spilling over into the release part.

RPM 4.10 released

Posted May 28, 2012 3:44 UTC (Mon) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

I have no strong opinions on that. Both is functional.

RPM 4.10 released

Posted May 28, 2012 8:31 UTC (Mon) by jamesh (guest, #1159) [Link]

I guess the reason Debian folk feel so strongly about it is that it actually has technical merits rather than aesthetic or philosophical ones.

When you push out a new RPM package, there is a single file source package that won't conflict with the old package in the archive. Debian source packages generally come as three files: one representing the pristine source, one representing the packaging, and one holding metadata. If you push two package versions to the archive built from the same pristine source, then they will share the first of those files.

This is generally a good thing, since it reduces the size of the archive and reduces the traffic needed to mirror the archive. It would cause problems if you published packages for a release candidate and final version using the same value in the "upstream version" part of the package version number.

Now even though these technical considerations don't affect you, hopefully you'll consider using it in cases where it makes the package version numbers easier to understand.

RPM 4.10 released

Posted May 28, 2012 9:09 UTC (Mon) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]

????

Using an ascii ordering quirk that makes tilde lesser than zero is easier to understand that using zero as lesser than any positive number?

RPM 4.10 released

Posted May 28, 2012 10:30 UTC (Mon) by Jonno (subscriber, #49613) [Link]

No, but it is easier to understand that upstream release number 1.0~rc1 is less than upstream release number 1.0, than understanding that upstream release number 1.0 is sometimes upstream release 1.0rc1 and sometimes upstream release 1.0, depending on what the packaging version is.

RPM 4.10 released

Posted May 28, 2012 11:42 UTC (Mon) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link]

All this mess because Debian users are considered morons, unable to parse 2.3.4-0.rc5 as before 2.3.4-1; while they are instantly in position to understand that 2.3.4~2 comes before 2.3.4-1. All justified because somebody somewhen could perhaps reuse the same source file.

Paint me totally unimpressed by this "technical" advantage.

RPM 4.10 released

Posted May 28, 2012 14:29 UTC (Mon) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link]

Can everyone please calm down? This seems to have degenerated into a "Deb rulez!!!" "No, RPM is the bestest!!!" argument, and it's completely ridiculous.

RPM 4.10 released

Posted May 28, 2012 23:45 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Don't worry about it. It just makes it easier to know which people to ignore.

It's the internet. It is what it is.

RPM 4.10 released

Posted May 28, 2012 14:48 UTC (Mon) by jamesh (guest, #1159) [Link]

Well, I described a technical reason for the Debian behaviour in a parent post.

If I have a foo_2.3.4-0.rc5 package, its corresponding source package would consist of the files:

foo_2.3.4-0.rc5.dsc
foo_2.3.4-0.rc5.diff.gz
foo_2.3.4.orig.tar.gz

If I have a foo_2.3.4-1 package, its corresponding source package would consist of the following files:

foo_2.3.4-1.dsc
foo_2.3.4-1.diff.gz
foo_2.3.4.orig.tar.gz

If the two packages were built off of different pristine source tarballs, then they could not co-exist in the same package archive since they depend on different contents for foo_2.3.4.orig.tar.gz.

The fact you only need a single copy of the pristine source is great when the packages really are based off of the same tarball, but it can't handle this kind of case. For that, you need some way to represent "a version that sorts just before 2.3.4" in the upstream version component of the package version number.

RPM 4.10 released

Posted May 28, 2012 20:07 UTC (Mon) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]

rpm separates the upstream source file name from the package versioning (you can define the source name from package metadata, but it's not a hard link), so you don't need to play games to reuse the same files

Now really the pre-version is put at the end of the rpm package version because that's the last element to sort when comparing packages (name-epoch-version-release), I suppose it could be made explicit with a new metadata field for informational version strings (sorted after name, epoch, software version, package release), but few people seem to miss it right now