On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 9:48 AM, Roger Oberholtzer
On Thu, 2009-04-16 at 09:40 -0400, Greg Freemyer wrote:
Pretty sure the specifics of what libraries have to be available is definable in a spec file for rpm installs, and in a debian.rules file for debian based systems.
Historically I don't think programmers have worked with those files and left it to the distro packagers to do it.
With the Opensuse Build Service (OBS) it becomes much more feasible for a programmer to take responsibility / advantage of the capabilities of these packaging tools.
FYI: The OBS also allows a distro packager to "patch" the default spec / rules I believe, so even if it is not perfect, having a base set of files can help the packagers by giving them something to work with.
All these things are packaging issues, not programmer issues. A least I am defining the programmer as the guy who writes the code that will be compiled. Not the guy who makes the packaging. Of course, that is programming as well. But I think it is better to call them packagers, or package designers, or anything other than programmers simply because the word programmer has prior meaning.
Roger, out of curiosity, what do you call the person that writes the makefile? Typically it comes with the tarball so I would say the programmer is responsible for that. Anyway, I totally agree that packagers have traditionally been responsible for the spec and rules files. But I personally think part of the major benefit of the OBS is that it allows the programmer to influence the packaging of his software without having to have their own build farm on which to build the packages. And since the issue I thought was can a programmer control which libraries are used in conjunction with their software, I'm saying the packaging tools provide that capability and that the OBS makes it realistic for a programmer to expand their influence into the realm of packaging. Greg -- Greg Freemyer Head of EDD Tape Extraction and Processing team Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer First 99 Days Litigation White Paper - http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf The Norcross Group The Intersection of Evidence & Technology http://www.norcrossgroup.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org