Patching RH SRPMS was: Re: [WBEL-users] Glade Freezes

[Kirby C. Bohling]

On Wed, Jun 01, 2005 at 09:42:12PM -0500, John Morris wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-06-01 at 20:58, Kirby C. Bohling wrote:
> 
> >     Just curious, what's the threshold for patching a RedHat
> > package?  I'm fairly sure you backed away from doing this for
> > several other (I remember at least one you publically thought out
> > loud about it) packages earlier.
> 
> The threshold here is that RH's glade runs and mine doesn't.  If someone
> can find the magic build order, gcc version, whatever, that allowed RH
> to get a working build I'd probably do that instead.  Similar to the
> situation with the dhcp package in WBEL4; it also has a patch from
> bugzilla because RH shipped a binary built on an earlier gcc because it
> was known the gcc shipped with RHEL4 could not build their srpm of
> dhcpd.

Check, I didn't realize that RedHat's works, and the SRPM built on
the self-hosting platform doesn't.  That is the critical piece of
information.  Yep, you and Johnny are still sane.  (Running your own
distro, I'm sure is like being a rock star.  Sex, Drugs, and
RPM's...).

> 
> >     I kinda like the "absolutely RedHat modulo artwork and some
> > text".  I actually felt kinda uncomfortable about CentOS when Johnny
> > mentioned it earlier (it seems kinda out of the spirit of a
> > rebuild).  This seems like a trivial but from reading the patch.  I
> > can't say I object, but I'm kinda surprised if RedHat doesn't feel
> > like rolling out a new package that you feel the need to.
> 
> I think we can hold the line at patching when it is required to achieve
> a working package when RedHat's package does work.  This keeps the rule
> "if it is broke on RedHat it gets entered into their bugzilla and fixed
> when the patch comes from upstream but if RedHat's version works and
> mine doesn't it is a build error and thus my problem."
> 
> Basically we have to face up to the fact that sometimes RH releases an
> srpm that flatly doesn't build on the target distribution.  Such has
> happened in the past and will happen again.  Since they currently show
> zero inclination to flag such a bug as anything other than
> "CLOSED-WONTFIX", "CLOSED-NOTABUG" or "CLOSED-RAWHIDE" it leaves three
> options, include a Rawhide package, fix the supplied package so that it
> builds and runs or delete the package.
> 
> >     Goodness knows I wish RedHat would release any number of
> > packages more often when they fix a trivial bug (ghostscript using
> > /dev/random instead of /dev/urandom, meanwhile the kernel had a bug
> > that meant /dev/random couldn't add entropy to the pool if the pool
> > ever emptied, so ghostscript would hang indefinitely if it was used
> > in large batch runs is the one I found the most irritating).
> 
> Agree that taking on those sort of patches in the mainline leads to
> madness.  Next thing ya know it is fork city and the .bomb VC dollars
> just ain't there anymore for me to think of ramping up into the next
> Mandrake.  :)

Oh come on, you know you want to run a business in France that is in
constant danger of going bankrupt.

    Thanks,
        Kirby