[Rpm-metadata] xml update

[Panu Matilainen]

On Thu, 2003-10-16 at 19:56, Jeff Johnson wrote:
> Panu Matilainen wrote:
> 
> >On Thu, 2003-10-16 at 19:30, Jeff Licquia wrote:
> >  
> >
> >>On Wed, 2003-10-15 at 23:58, seth vidal wrote:
> >>    
> >>
> >>>Ok,
> >>>  I tried just doing a mock up from what I mentioned last night.
> >>>
> >>>so a file might look something like this:
> >>>http://linux.duke.edu/~skvidal/metadata/rpm-metadata3.xml
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>I've updated my Debian-style mockup and generator script.  For
> >>reference, everything is at:
> >>
> >>  http://hackers.progeny.com/~licquia/rpm-metadata/
> >>
> >>The new metadata file is at:
> >>
> >>  http://hackers.progeny.com/~licquia/rpm-metadata/metadata-3.xml
> >>
> >>    
> >>
> >
> >Hmm. Can we please have Priority in non-deb specific place? Rpm itself
> >doesn't support that but apt-rpm does. The priority support in apt-rpm
> >is clumsy at best (/etc/apt/rpmpriorities file) currently but for the
> >xml one could set it much more sanely per repository. Similarly apt-rpm
> >*could* use Suggests and Enhances, it just currently doesn't since that
> >info isn't available anywhere.
> >
> 
> At the risk of upetting a fragile but developing consensus, I suggest 
> that all of
>      Obsoletes:
>      Conflicts:
>      Enhances:
>      Suggests:
>      Recommends:
>      Priority:
> be made common.
> 
> The risk is mainly with Obsoletes: and Conflicts: which may very well
> have subtle and incompatible semantics. I'll wave my hands and mumble
>      Implementation details.
> for the moment, as I do not believe there are serious incompatibilities.
> 
> The other 4 have no (current) rpm usage semantic, but might very well
> be useful for depsolvers. I'd suggest adopting the current Debian semantic
> exactly as is, after carefully thinking about how that semantic might be
> usefully implemented in rpm depsolvers. Clearly, apt-rpm already has
> an implementation that makes use of that information.

My feelings exactly: whether rpm supports something or not isn't really
relevant, the metadata can well have additional stuff which can be used
among several depsolvers. 

Which reminds me.. the current xml suggestion doesn't have anything for
per-repository/channel data. I suppose that's just "haven't had time
yet" from Seths part but that deserves attention as well. Things like
repository name, distro/version compatibility info... Apt's
release-files have all sorts of information which needs to be mapped
somewhere and this is imho a good chance to make the release* entries
more understandable to non-debian folks :)

	- Panu -