RPM -- plans, goals, etc.

Posted Dec 21, 2006 13:49 UTC (Thu) by Randakar (guest, #27808)
In reply to: RPM -- plans, goals, etc. by seyman
Parent article: RPM -- plans, goals, etc.

> Because the dependencies for a package can be in any number of packages,
> all of which would resolve them.

That's bogus. It's easily possible for different packages to provide the same file with -different- contents. deb packages simply say 'Provides: foo' in their package headers if they want to give users a choice of packages.

File dependencies however plainly don't cover a number of cases, like kernel versions with or without certain features, udev revisions (which can 'add files' in /dev without actually packaging them), certain types of library conflicts..

Personally I think all those RPM people just have no idea what they're missing out on with .deb.

Worse, instead of just saying 'argh, this project was abandoned, but hey look, we have a great alternative with DPKG' they embark on something that can only lead to massive duplication of effort.