On Tue, 5 Oct 2010 19:46:53 -0500 BJ Dierkes <[email protected]> wrote:
> NOTE: This is likely a topic to revisit/finalize in the next EPEL SIG > Meeting (every Monday at 19:30 UTC). > > Hello all, > > I would like to start an official discussion regarding the current > policy on conflicting packages. Currently, the EPEL documentation > [1] is a bit sparse and does not reflect certain situations (such as > the discussion on mod_python26/mod_wsgi26). Per the FPG [1], Fedora > packagers should avoid an explicit 'Conflicts: xxxxx' as much as > possible. However, due to some new developments in EPEL 5 (namely > python26), some situations may require explicitly conflicting > packages. > > As an example, during my package review for mod_python26 [3] the > subject was brought up due to my use of 'Conflicts: mod_python' in > the spec for mod_python26. The packages conflict because mod_python > and mod_python26 both provide the 'python_module', and the same > Apache directives when enabled. Therefore, the two can not be loaded > at the same time. The issue would be the same for mod_wsgi and > mod_wsgi26 (built against/for python26). In this specific situation, > the possible solutions to work around this are: > > * Change policy to account for situations like those related to > python26 and allow explicit 'Conflicts: xxxxx' > * Silently disable mod_python26 if python_module is already loaded > via IfModule [4] > > > Though the second option (IfModule) is a cleaner approach, it hides > the fact that mod_python26 just won't load if mod_python is > installed/enabled and assumes the user will know to look > at /etc/httpd/conf.d/mod_python26.conf for comments on why that might > be. On the other hand, conflicting with mod_python doesn't inform > the user why it conflicts... it just conflicts. In my opinion it > would be slightly more obvious why mod_python26 would Conflict: > mod_python, but I don't know what is collectively in the best > interest of EPEL maintainers. > > In Fedora, an explicit 'Conflicts: xxxxx' is unwanted behavior and > would be troubling/confusing for a lot of users. However, being that > EPEL is a different audience and different use case... I would like > to open discussion regarding current policy and determine, > officially, how these situations should be handled. So, some more questions I have: * Would this conflicts case be restricted to just these python26-mod* packages? Or is this more general? I can see the case for packages that use a parallel installable stack and can't load at the same time, but I worry that we should make sure this isn't used more broadly. * Perhaps it would be worth making sure we document and require adding a 'README-conflicts' to any package that has these conflicts with a more verbose description of why and with what they conflict? Or some other way to get info to users as to why they conflict? I guess I would be ok with the conflict in this corner case, but would want to make sure we discuss/approve any further expansion of it anywhere. kevin
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