On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 09:45:21AM -0500, Greg Swift wrote:
On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 2:53 PM, Toshio Kuratomi
<a.badger(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> As for non-upstream patches... we are against them but not as much as other
> things. Non-upstream patches aren't a guideline in the Fedora packaging
> guideline, for instance. Keeping non-upstream patches to a minimum allows
> a package maintainer to do more work with their limited time. But there are
> things about packaging that sometimes require patching even if the upstream
> won't accept them. For instance, a patch to run against an older version of
> a language even though the upstream doesn't care about that version anymore.
> Figuring out how to utilize a different version of a library is just a short
> step away from that.
Okay... I took its mention in the guidelines as more of a strong
recommendation, especially due to the 'If you think that your package
should be exempt from part of the Guidelines, please bring the issue
to the Fedora Packaging Committee'. Thanks for explaining that.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#All_patches_should_ha...
Ah -- yeah, that's a SHOULD guideline. Shoulds are best practices that we
mention in the guidelines but it's a sign there's a lot more leeway as to
what's acceptable. It usually means that there's good reasons to follow it
and good reasons not to. When reviewing a package or looking at an existing
package there can be valid reasons that the spec file doesn't conform to
what the guideline says you should do.
-Toshio