[Kolab-devel] Fedora packaging

[Erik M Jacobs]

On 01/21/2014 07:06 AM, Karel Volný wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> as this is my first post here, let me introduce a bit -
> My name is Karel Volný, and I work as quality assuarance engineer at Red
> Hat, Brno, Czech Republic. As a sideprojects I'm doing some translations
> and Fedora/EPEL packaging. The latter brings me here ...
> 
> Recently, I have tried to set up Kolab on one of my machines, and while
> trying to fight the issues, I just had to say to myself stop, and try to
> do that systematically, to the benefit of other users and not just to
> hack my system.
> 
> So, the first thing I wonder about is why Kolab is not in the
> distribution repositories of Fedora?
> 
> I can understand some benefits from the developers' side, but as an
> user, I'd prefer not having to mess with external repositories. For
> example, right now there is a real problem with it that Fedora 20 got
> released about a month ago, yet the install guide refers to F18 and F19
> only, and there doesn't seem to be anything newer in OBS.
> 
> While I don't want to just come here and say "leave OBS, move to Fedora
> proper!", I'd like to know -
> 
> * what are the exact benefits for the Kolab upstream to release own rpm
> packages, instead of releasing only sources and leaving upon
> distributions to pack them (while there doesn't have to be any gap in
> between upstream and the distribution, same people could do the job, I
> know for example Jeroen maintained *a lot* of Fedora packages ...)
> 
> * what are the possible reasons for not including Kolab in Fedora proper
> - license issues, whatever ...
> 
> As I see four review requests opened in Red Hat's Bugzilla for Kolab
> components, I suppose the idea of having Kolab in Fedora is not
> considered bad, but there isn't enough manpower?
> 
> I'm willing to help in that case; if an effort to get Kolab into Fedora
> proper already started, could someone give me pointers where I could be
> most useful?
> 
> K.
> 

Hi Karel,

I think part of the issue is that there is no one willing to step up and
sign up to package Kolab for Fedora.  There is a lot required and,
generally, it seems that Kolab's RPM packages don't fit the Fedora
guidelines.  It would take a lot of work.

Perhaps you and I can work together on it?

-E