[packman] Why do we build libcaca ?

[Pascal Bleser]

On 2011-02-25 21:29:57 (+0100), Manfred Tremmel <manfred at links2linux.de> wrote:
> Am Freitag, 25. Februar 2011 schrieb Pascal Bleser:
> > Is there a specific reason why we build libcaca in our
> > repository ? (currently in Essentials)
> 
> I've added it at a time libcaca got incompatible from one version to 
> another and some packages (as xine-lib) needed a version which was up to 
> date. I don't remember when it was, but beta14 is at the moment what's 
> minimum required in the xine-lib configure script. So the openSUSE 11.1 
> package is to old.

Yes, I've kept libcaca building in our OBS for SLE_11 and
Evergreen_11.1

[...]
> > Please let me know if there is a good reason of having the
> > latest in our repository (other than the above, in which case I
> > will only build libcaca for 11.1 and SLE_11 :)).
> 
> If adding the package to our repository why not building for all SUSE 
> versions? It's not easy to explain why openSUSE 11.1 users will get 
> 0.99.beta17 and openSUSE 11.2 and 11.3 users should use 0.99.beta16. And 
> it doesn't make bug hunting easier to take care of the different bugs in 
> the different versions.

That is one option/point-of-view, yes.

On the other hand, I personally believe that it is much nicer if
people who add the Packman repository don't
* suddenly get an upgrade of libcaca, which might break packages
  that are not provided by Packman (although the "vendor lock"
  should prevent most people from falling into that trap)
* have to upgrade libcaca when they install our xine, MPlayer,
  ... packages when there is no real need for it (our packages
  all build just fine agains the libcaca versions that are
  shipped by the distros -- except for 11.1)

I had a look at the changelog for 0.99beta17 and there are very,
very few bug fixes in it, almost everything is just cosmetic or
changes on subpackages we neither build nor use (java bindings,
php bindings, ...).

I mean, if there is really a good reason for us to force an
upgrade of a dependency (e.g. better performance, bugfixes, ...)
then, of course, it's a totally different story and I agree that
we should provide the newer version.
But I don't think it's the case here.

cheers
-- 
  -o) Pascal Bleser <pascal.bleser at opensuse.org>
  /\\ http://opensuse.org -- I took the green pill
 _\_v FOSDEM XI: 5 + 6 Feb 2011, http://fosdem.org
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